c:\This        c:\is        c:\a        c:\test

In either Windows 95 or Windows NT, you can use quotes to create long folder names. For example, entering md "This is a test" will create a folder named This is a test in either system.

Would you like to have your NotePad shortcut to save files to a specific folder? If so, right-click the shortcut and choose the Properties command from the pop-up menu. In the Properties dialog box click the Shortcut tab. Now click in the Start In text box and type in the desired folder name and path. For example, if you want the files to save in the Data folder on Drive C, you'd enter c:\Data then click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes.

If you need to choose between two folders, you can create another NotePad shortcut and set its Start In folder to another folder name. For example, if you enter c:\Keep the files will be saved to the Keep folder. Choose which shortcut to use depending on the folder in which you want to save the files. You'll have to name the shortcuts differently of course. Something like Data Files and Keep Files will work.

Command prompt. Version 4.0
You can change the command prompt during an MS-DOS session with the Prompt command. For example, you could type What is your command? $P$G to make the prompt look like this: What is your command? C:\> This prompt will remain in effect until you change it or close the command window.
If you'd like to change the prompt permanently, click Start/Settings/Control Panel and double-click System. Next, click the Environment tab and click in the Variable text box. Type Prompt, then click in the Value text box. In this box, you need to enter your new prompt text. Sticking with our original example, you could enter What is your command? $P$G Now click Add, then click OK to close the dialog box. When you open the command prompt window again, it will display your new default prompt.

Boot ini. Version 4.0
If you need to see what drivers are being loaded as Windows NT 4.0 starts, you can use Boot.INI to tell NT to display the drivers.
When you edit the Boot.INI file, you need to first make sure you have a backup of the current file. Here's what we do: We rename Boot.INI to Boot.TXT. Next, open Boot.TXT with NotePad and make the changes. Finally, choose File/Save As, then select All Files from the Save As Type list box. Now name the file Boot.INI and save it. This keeps your original file in the form of Boot.TXT.
To display the drivers during start up, add /SOS to the Windows NT line. Your line should resemble the one shown here. multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00" /SOS
Now save the file as Boot.INI and restart your computer to see the drivers loading during start up.

Command prompt. Version 4.0
If you need to start a Win 16 application from the command prompt and would like to run it in its own memory space, type Start /Separate Drive\Folder\App where 'Drive' is the drive on which the file resides, 'Folder' is the name of the folder where the file is located, and 'App' is the name of the Win 16 executable file.

DELETING FLOPPY FILES Version 4.0
Ordinarily, all files deleted from floppy disk drives are gone forever. However, if you like, you can send these files to the Recycle Bin indirectly and provide yourself with some deletion protection. Create a new folder on your desktop and name it Trash. Now move files from the floppy to Trash where you can keep them until it's safe to delete them. Then you can move them to the Recycle Bin where you'll still have some protection.

CLEAR DOCUMENTS Version 4.0
If you'd like to clear the Documents menu with a simple double-click, you can write a batch file such as the one shown here. To write the batch file, open NotePad and type move d:\winnt\profiles\YourProfile\recent\*.* c:\recycled where YourProfile is your personal profile name.
Now name the file Zap.BAT and save it in the folder of your choice. Next, create a shortcut and place it on the desktop. Right-click the shortcut and choose Properties. Click the Shortcut tab, then choose Minimized in the Run list box. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes. Now you can double-click the Zap icon to clear the Documents menu.
Warning: Make sure you get the correct profile folder in Zap's path, since this permanently deletes all files in the target folder. These files do not go to the Recycle Bin, they are gone.

If you'd like to have Zap.BAT automatically clear the Documents menu so you can start with a clean slate every day, place a shortcut to Zap into the Start Up folder. Once again, right-click the icon and choose Properties. Then click Shortcut and choose Minimized from the Run list box. Click OK to close the dialog box and record your changes. Warning: Don't forget that Zap will permanently delete all files in the target folder. Make absolutely sure you have entered the correct path.

DOS COMMAND HELP Version 4.0
If you need some quick help on how to use an MS-DOS command in the Command Prompt window, at the prompt type Command /? in which Command is the name of the command you need to use. When you press Enter, you'll get information on how to use the command.
You can also get help by clicking the Command Prompt's Command button, then choosing Properties. When the dialog box opens, click Help. When finished using Help, click OK or Cancel to close the dialog box.

Command/Result
$A & Ampersand
$B | Pipe
$C ( Open parenthesis
$D Current date
$E Escape code (ASCII code 27)
$F ) Close parenthesis
$G > greater-than sign
$H Backspace (erases previous character)
$L < Less-than sign
$N Current drive
$P Current drive with path
$Q = Equal sign
$S Space
$T Current time
$V Windows NT version number
$_ Carriage return and linefeed
$$ $ Dollar sign

Here's an example of how to use the prompt command. Go to the Command Prompt window and type prompt $D$S$T$S$V$_$P$G at the prompt. Now press Enter to produce the command prompt shown here:   Fri 08/22/1997 10:29:46.17 Windows NT Version 4.0
C:\>

CLICK ON START ARROW? Version 4.0
If you'd like to get rid of the Click on Start arrow that appears whenever possible, you can do the job with a bit of Registry editing.
Now for the usual warning: You can really mess up your installation if you mess up the Registry. Be careful.
Run RegEdit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. If there's an entry named NoStartBanner, double-click on the entry to open it. You'll see four initial zeroes. After these zeroes, type in 01 00 00 00 (you don't need to enter the spaces, RegEdit does it for you). Click on OK and close RegEdit. Now restart the computer and you'll never see that arrow again.
If there's no NoStartBanner entry, you need to create one. Right-click on RegEdit's right pane and choose New/Binary Value. Name your new entry NoStartBanner. Double-click on your new entry and then enter the values as described above.

DISK PERFORMANCE Version 3.1, 3.5, 3.51, 4.0
The Performance Monitor won't monitor disk performance unless you turn on the disk counters first. To do this, go to the Command prompt and type diskperf -Y and press Enter. Now restart the computer.
When Windows NT starts again, you can monitor disk activity with the Performance Monitor.
Since the counters will affect disk performance (very slightly) you should turn them off when you're finished with your testing. To turn off the counters, go to the Command prompt again, and type diskperf -N press Enter, and then restart the computer.

DELETING A DIRECTORY TREE Version 4.0
There is a command similar to the Windows 95 Deltree command. You can accomplish the same thing in Windows NT 4.0 by using the Rmdir command.
Try this: Create a new folder and then create within that folder a subfolder. Now place some files in the subfolder. You can use copies of existing files from another folder. Just make sure you copy (not move) the files.
Now go to the command prompt and type RD c:\NewFolder\Test /s and press Enter to delete the folders and the files contained within them.

UPGRADING CHECKLIST Version 4.0
If you're thinking of upgrading some computers in your organization from Windows 95 to Windows NT Workstation 4.0, you need to consider a few points before you spend any money or time.
Windows 95 supports more than 1000 devices than does Windows NT. Make sure you have device drivers for all your hardware before you start an installation. Although you may think that most Windows 95 drivers will work with NT, this is not the case.
You also need to make sure that all your software will run properly in Windows NT. Some software that you use with Windows 95 may have been written specifically for that operating system and may not run in Windows NT.

SETTING UP A SOUND CARD Version 4.0
To set up a sound card In Windows NT 4.0, determine the card's selections (I/O port, interrupt number), turn off the computer, insert the card, and restart the computer. Now open Control Panel and double-click on the Multimedia icon. When the dialog box opens, click on the Devices tab.
Now select Audio Devices and click on Add. (You'll probably need to insert your Windows NT 4.0 CD at this point). When offered a driver selection, choose the device that matches your sound card. Set the I/O to match your card and click on Continue. Now set the interrupt to match and click on OK.
You'll be prompted to restart. After the restart, your sound card should function. If there's an interrupt conflict, you may need to set your sound card to a different interrupt. If so, make the change, reinsert the card, and repeat the installation procedure.

CHANGING A SHORTCUT Version 4.0
If you place a shortcut to a file on your desktop (or anywhere) and then change the location of the file, the shortcut may no longer work. In some cases, NT will locate the file and make the changes for you. Other times, NT may offer to let you locate the file. And in some cases, you may have to modify the shortcut.

SOUND ALERT Version 4.0
If you like to use sounds to alert you when something happens, open Control Panel and double-click on the Sounds icon. Now you can select a sound for any Windows NT occurrence.
If you'd like to have more sounds at your disposal, double-click on Add/Remove Programs and then click on the Windows NT Setup tab. Double-click on Multimedia and select all the extra sounds. Click on OK to close the dialog box and then click on OK to install the new sounds. You'll have to insert your Windows NT CD to install the sounds. You need to use the \i386 directory on the CD.

QUICK SEARCH Version 4.0
To launch a search in any active folder (including Windows NT Explorer), press F3. If the folder isn't active, click on it to make it active and then press F3. To launch a search from the desktop, click on it and press F3.

FOLDERS Version 4.0
If you need to open a folder and then open a folder in that folder, etc., etc., but you don't want to leave a trail of folders on your desktop, here 's what you can do: Open the main folder. Now hold down Ctrl and double-click on the subfolder you want to open. The new folder will open and the original folder will close.
The only drawback is that the subfolder will open in the same format as the main folder. If the main folder was set to Large Icons, then the subfolder will open with large icons even if it was originally set to List.

MSD? Version 4.0
Want to know what happened to MSD? It became Winmsd.exe. You'll find it in \Winnt\System32. This Windows NT version of MSD will provide you with all the information you used to get from MSD.
You can run Winmsd to find out what version of BIOS your computer runs, what kind of display you're using, and information about your disk drives and memory. Try it, you'll like it. And it doesn't have to run in an MS-DOS window.

ANIMATED WINDOWS? Version 4.0
When you open a window in NT 4.0, the window seems to fly out of the taskbar. And when you close a window, it shrinks back into the taskbar. If you'd like to do without this particular feature, you can use RegEdit to eliminate it.
As usual, we need to caution you to be careful when fooling around with the Registry, you can do a lot of damage if you make a mistake.
Run RegEdit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics. Double-click on the WindowMetrics folder and then choose Edit|New|String Value. Name your new string MinAnimate. After you create MinAnimate, double-click on it and set its value to 0 (zero). Exit RegEdit and restart the computer.

ON THE DESKTOP Version 4.0
Microsoft's PowerToys includes the file TweakUI that lets you modify the user interface. The file also includes Deskmenu. When you install Deskmenu, its icon is embedded in the taskbar so it's always available. All you have to do is click on it once and you get a menu that matches your desktop--very handy. Deskmenu appears to run in Windows NT 4.0 with no problems.
You can snag a copy of PowerToys at http://www.pcworld.com/cgi-bin/database/file_body.pl?ID=3889

UNINSTALLING NETWORK PRINTERS Version 4.0
You can uninstall a printer (local or network) by simply choosing Start/Settings/Printers and then selecting the printer and pressing Delete. If Windows NT asks if you want to delete the files associated with the printer, choose Yes if you're sure you won't reinstall the printer and No if you're not so sure.
Note that you may not be able to uninstall some networked printers because they are attached to a dedicated printer server and take orders only from a controller. In this case, you'd have to have permission to uninstall the printer.

CONTROL PANEL Version 4.0
Let's say you're working with a Control Panel tool and switch to an application. To get back to the Control Panel tool, you press Alt-Tab. The tool isn't in the list.
This is not an error. Since Control Panel tools are treated as modeless dialog boxes, they are always part of Control Panel.
To switch to a running Control Panel tool, you can use Alt-Esc to get the focus back to the Control Panel tool, or you can use the mouse to select the tool on the desktop.
You can also go back to Control Panel and double-click on the tool's icon to open it again.

INSTALLING A MODEM Version 4.0
Sometimes Windows NT 4.0 will detect your modem and call it a standard modem. This happens even when the modem is supported by NT and when driver files are available.
If this happens to you, you can manually select the correct driver. This is all you need to do to get the modem to function properly.

RUNNING OFFICE APPS IN SEPARATE MEMORY Version 3.50, 3.51
If you'd like to run Microsoft Office 4.x applications in a separate memory space from the Microsoft Office Toolbar, you can create a batch file with the command shown in this example. You can use NotePad to create the file: start /separate /b d:\msoffice\excel\excel.exe
exit
Name the file to suit yourself; something like Excel_S.bat will do. Put the file into the folder of your choice. We created a folder named BAT and placed the file there.
Now start the toolbar by running Microsoft Office. Next, click on the application button, on the far right-hand side of the toolbar. Choose Customize. Choose Customize|Toolbar and then choose Add. Fill in the fields as shown here.

WEB SITE SHORTCUTS Version 4.0
If you're surfing the Web and run across a site that you'd like to keep as handy as possible, right-click on the site's URL and then choose Copy from the menu. Now move to your desktop and right-click where you like the URL to appear. Choose Paste Shortcut.

LONG NAMES Version 4.0
If you have some icons with relatively long names, you may find that the entire name won't show. You can make the entire name show by changing the horizontal icon spacing.
Open the window that contains the long name. Now right-click on the desktop and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click on the Appearance tab. Now click on the down arrow at the right of Item. When the list expands, select Icon Spacing (Horizontal). Use the spin box to increase the spacing. Make sure your long icon name is visible and then click on Apply. Now click on the window that contains your icon to activate it and then press F5 to refresh the window.
If the name shows, click on OK and go about your business. If the entire name still doesn't show, increase the spacing again, click on Apply, and refresh the window.
You need to make some compromise on icon spacing. Increasing the spacing a little to allow longer names to display is OK. But if you increase the spacing too much, you may be unhappy with the extra desktop space required by your windows.

FONTS Version 4.0
If you'd like to examine the fonts available to your system, go to the \Winnt\Fonts folder. All the fonts are in this folder. You can view them to see exactly what they look like by simply double-clicking on the font you want to view.

MULTIPLE PRINTERS Version 4.0
If you periodically need to print something that uses a special setup, consider installing a new printer. You say you have only one printer? Don't worry, Windows NT doesn't really know.
Choose Start/Settings/Printers and then double-click on Add Printer. Follow the Wizard to install your new printer. Give it a different name from the original printer.
After the printer is installed, set its defaults to those needed by your periodic printing requirements. Go to the document you want to print, choose Print, and choose the new printer. Set up the necessary parameters and print your document.
When you want to print standard documents, choose your original printer.

LOOKING FOR AN IMAGE? Version 4.0
If you'd like to use a simple image program, try loading Windows NT imaging software. Although this program (applet really) sports abbreviated editing capabilities, it will do many simple graphic manipulations.
If you have a scanner installed on your computer, you can use the imaging software to handle the scanner output for you. Just make sure you install all the scanner driver software before you install the imaging software.

Let's say you have an MS-DOS program named OLDIE.EXE. First, open a text editor (Notepad will do) and type in the DOS program and its path. Something like this: C:\utilities\oldie.exe
Save your new file with a .BAT extension. In this case, old.bat will do fine. Now create a shortcut of the .BAT file. Right-click on the shortcut and choose Properties. Click on Layout and then deselect the "Let system position window" check box. Now use the spin boxes to set the window position.
If you have yet another MS-DOS program that you'd like to run in a different position, repeat the procedure described for the first program.

PURGING ITEMS FROM THE DOCUMENTS MENU IN THE START MENU
One of the handiest features to Windows NT 4.0's Start Menu is the Documents menu that contains a list of up to the last 15 open documents. Occasionally, the menu will need to be cleared old or confidential documents.
To remove items from the Documents menu, you can use Windows NT 4.0's Clear button, which you can access in one of two ways. You can bring up the Start menu, select Settings, then select Taskbar and when the Taskbar Properties sheet appears, select the Start Menu Programs tab. Or right-click the Taskbar, select the Properties command, then select the Start Menu Programs tab from the Taskbar Properties sheet.
Also, you can create an easier, alternate way to clear the Documents menu directly from the desktop. This involves creating a batch file that deletes all files from the Recent folder, which is associated with the Documents menu and contains shortcuts to the last 15 open documents, and placing the batch file icon on the desktop.
To create a batch file icon on your desktop that deletes those shortcuts, open the command line and type copy con clear.bat echo y|del c:\winnt\profiles\<username>\recent ^Z  Note: if the username contains spaces, you'll need to enclose the command line in quotes.
Windows NT 4.0 defaults to creating a folder in the Recent folder for each user profile on the system, so enter the user name that corresponds to the profile you're using. Use the echo y to answer the following question: All files in the directory will be deleted!  Are you sure (Y/N)?
o place the batch file on the desktop, create a shortcut to the batch file and configure it to behave like a Windows application. To do so, launch one of Windows NT's disk navigation tools, and open the folder where you saved the batch file; drag the file to the desktop. From the context menu resulting from the drag, select Create Shortcut(s) Here. Right-click the batch file shortcut and select the Properties command.
Then, select the Shortcut tab. Next, select the Minimized option in the Run dropdown list box. Then, click the Change Icon... button and select an appropriate icon for the batch file. Don't forget to click the Apply button so the shortcut will accept your changes.
When you run the batch file, you'll momentarily see an MS-DOS button appear on the Taskbar. When it disappears, the batch file has finished running, thus clearing the Documents menu.

To group the directories first and then sort by name, and then by date, you'd enter Set dircmd=\o:GND /a
To force a reverse order, use a minus sign before the letter. The command Set dircmd=\o:-N /a will tell DIR to sort by name starting with Z moving to A.

EVENT VIEWER Version 4.0
Many Windows NT users never think of the Event Viewer until there's a rather serious problem somewhere. Don't wait for a major problem--you can get an idea of how your system is running by simply checking the Event Viewer now and then. To open Event Viewer, click on Start, Programs, Administrative Tools, Event Viewer. Look for events with red or yellow icons. These icons represent potential problem events (red is an error, yellow is a warning). To see the details of an event, double-click on it. A recent check of the Event Viewer on one of our machines turned up several occurrences of yellow and red icons. Double-clicking on one of the red ones provided this information:
The control registers for COM2 overlaps with the COM4 control registers. (This isn't really a problem unless we try to run COM2 and COM4 at the same time.)   Double-clicking a yellow icon produced the message: A data error occurred on the tape. Using error correction to recover data. From device: \Device\q117i0
We didn't know this error occurred. It's something to keep in mind, but it may never occur again. Keep the Event Viewer in mind--it can help you avoid future problems.

NET.MEDIC BY VITALSIGNS SOFTWARE
ftp://ftp.vitalsigns.com/pub/netmedic/windows/nm11.exe Net.Medic is a browser companion that can significantly improve your online experience. It works with your Internet browser to monitor, isolate, diagnose and correct problems that affect your Internet experience. Now you can identify the source of your network bottleneck-your PC, modem, Internet Service Provider, the Internet backbone or remote Web site server. Net.Medic identifies problems in split seconds, offers you recommendations for solving them and in certain cases, automatically fixes them for you.

NT Workstation Version 4.0
There are times when you might want to get rid of a Com port--at least temporarily. To do this, click Start, Settings, Control Panel and double-click Ports. Click the port you want to delete to select it and then click Delete.
After you delete the port and restart the computer, you may find that you still get an error event associated with the offending port. This can happen because there's still information about the port in the Registry. If this happens to you, you need to eliminate the port using RegEdit.
To do this, run RegEdit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Serial\Parameters. Under Parameters, you'll find each of your serial ports. Delete the one in question and choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit. Now restart the computer.
If the port is active, it could appear again in Control Panel, Ports. If this happens, the only thing you can do is run your BIOS CMOS Setup utility and turn off the port.

SYTEM BOOT TIME NT Workstation 4.0
When you use Windows NT 4.0 along with other operating systems, you can tell the system how long to wait before booting into the default selection. You can set the time to as short or as long as you like (provided you like 0 to 999). If you want, you can even tell the system to take no action until you make a selection and press Enter.
To do this, run Windows NT Explorer and locate Boot.ini. Right-click Boot.ini and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, deselect the Read-only check box and click Apply. Now click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes.
Now double-click the Boot.ini icon to open it in Notepad. When the file opens, locate Timeout and change it to Timeout = -1
Then save the file (File, Save) and restart the computer. Now the system will wait for you to make a selection until Hell freezes over.

AUTOMATIC LOG-ON
If you'd like to log-on to your personal workstation without having to enter a password each time, you can set your system to automatically log-on. To do this, click Start, Run and type in RegEdit. Now click OK.
When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. Right-click in the right pane of Winlogon and choose New, String Value. Name the new value AutoAdminLogon. Now double-click your new entry and assign it the value of 1. Click OK.
Next, you need to tell Windows NT about your password. Right-click the right pane again and choose New, String Value. This time assign the name DefaultPassword. Double-click the new entry and type in your password. Click OK. Now you can close RegEdit (Alt, R, X) and restart your computer.
Note that this pretty much destroys your security. Anyone can start the computer, and if someone runs RegEdit and checks in Winlogon, he or she can see your password.
If the log-on works only onceit's because you did not enter your password. For the tip to work, you must have a password, and you must enter the password that you chose for your system log-on. If you enter a different password, you'll have problems with other programs, such as Microsoft FAX. Keeping in mind the usual warnings about making changes to the Registry, run RegEdit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. Look in the right pane for AutoAdminLogon. If it's there, double-click it and change the value to 1. If it isn't there, choose Edit, New, String Value (NT 4.0) or Edit, String Value (NT 3.51). Name the new value AutoAdminLogon and give it the value 1.
For the Auto log-on to work, you have to add your password. Look for DefaultPassword in the right pane. If it isn't there, create it by choosing Edit, New, String Value (4.0) or Edit, Add Value (3.51). Assign your password to it.
Now you can close RegEdit and restart the computer. Note that if you click Start, Shut Down and select Close All Programs and Log On as a Different User, and then click Yes, the system will restart without offering to sign on a new user.
If you do want to log on as another user, you can. All you have to do is click Start and then choose Shut Down. Select the radio button labeled Close All Programs and Log On as a Different User? Click Yes and hold down the Shift key while Windows NT restarts. This time, you'll get the familiar sign-in box.

STARTUP SCREEN
You can eliminate the startup screen by renaming winnt.bmp and winnt256.bmp files to winnt.old and winnt256.old. You can also use your own BMP files by naming them winnt.bmp and winnt256.bmp.
You can also use RegEdit to change the name of the file you want to use as a startup screen.
As usual, we must warn you that messing with the Registry can cause you some real headaches if you make a mistake. With that in mind, follow the procedure listed here very carefully.
Click Start, Run and type in RegEdit
Now click OK or press Enter. Navigate to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop. In the right pane locate Wallpaper and double-click it to open the Edit String dialog box. The current value is most likely Default. Change it to the BMP file you want to use and click OK. Now choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit. Restart the computer and your new startup screen will appear.
If you don't want a startup screen, just delete Default in the Edit String dialog box and click OK. Now close RegEdit as described.

RUN DIFFERENCES?
Why you need to use the Start command to run a program from the command prompt as you can run any executable file from the command prompt by simply typing in its name.
The difference is that you can run a program in a command prompt window by simply typing its name and pressing Enter. When you use the Start command, however, you run a program in a NEW command prompt window by entering Start ProgramName and pressing Enter.
For example, if you want to run a program named program.exe, you can simply type program at the command prompt and the program will run.
Let's try this with xcopy. Open the command prompt window and go to the root folder (type md c:\test and press Enter). Now type xcopy c:\data c:\test Press Enter and xcopy will run and copy c:\data to c:\test.
Now let's use Start. Open a command prompt window and type Start xcopy c:\data c:\test and press Enter. This time, xcopy will run in a separate command prompt window. You can continue to use the original window to perform other work.
You can also use Run to launch a registered application's document. For example, if you open Run and type in test.txt Windows NT will launch notepad and load the file.

SYSTEM INFORMATION
You know you can double-click My Computer to access the disk drives, printer installation, the Control Panel, and dial-up networking. You can also use My Computer to obtain system information. Right-click My Computer and choose Properties. This opens the System Properties dialog box. You can right-click My Computer and choose Explorer to open My Computer in Explorer view.
Here's a My Computer trick that you might like to use: Double-click My Computer to open it. If you don't see the toolbar, then choose View, Toolbar to activate it. Now click the arrow at the right of the Address list box (right now the contents are My Computer). When the list expands, select Desktop. Now the window displays the contents of your desktop. You can minimise the window and choose it later from the taskbar when you need to get to one of the desktop icons.

MS-DOS CUT AND PASTE
You can paste information from a Windows NT application into a command prompt line. Try this: Select a line of text and press Ctrl-C to copy it. Now open the command prompt and click the control box. This will open a menu from which you should choose Edit, Paste. Note: You can't press Ctrl -V to paste into a command prompt window.
If you want to copy some text in a command prompt window and paste it into a Windows application, click the control box and choose Edit, Mark from the menu. Now use the mouse to select the text you want to copy, and after you finish the selection, press Enter. This copies the text to the clipboard. Go to the Windows application and click where you want the text to appear. Press Ctrl-V to paste the text.
There's a way to speed up this operation: You can use QuickEdit mode. Right-click your Command Prompt icon and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Options tab. Now select the check box labeled QuickEdit Mode and click OK.
Double-click the Command Prompt icon now. After the window opens, press the mouse button and drag across some text. You'll find that this selects the text now. To copy the selected text, right-click in the selected area. You can now move to another application's document, click in it, and press Ctrl-V to paste the data from the command prompt window.

SOUND ADVICE
You can choose the sounds that you want to use for each Windows NT event. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel and double-click the Sounds icon. Click each Windows NT event to select it and then click Browse. Locate the sound you want to associate with the selected event and double-click it.
Now you can click the Play button in Preview to see if you like the sound you selected. If not, click Browse and choose a new sound. If you like the sound, move on to the next event and make a selection for it.
When you finish making your sound selections, you may want to save the sound scheme, so click Save As and enter a name. Click OK, and then Click OK again to close the dialog box.
When you want to recover your sound scheme, click Start, Settings, Control Panel and double-click the Sounds icon. Now click the arrow at the right side of the Schemes list box. When the list expands, click the sound scheme you want to use. Click OK to close the dialog box and record your selection.

RENAME RECYCLE BIN
You can change the name of the Recycle Bin if you really want to - you have to use RegEdit though. As usual, we need to warn you that messing around in the Registry can totally disable your system. So be careful.
Click Start, Run and type in RegEdit. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} and double-click the Recycle Bin icon in the right pane. Change it to Trash (or whatever you want). Close RegEdit and restart the computer.
When the computer restarts, the Recycle Bin will be named "Trash." Note that all other references remain Recycle Bin. So when you right-click the Trash icon, the menu choice will still be Empty Recycle Bin.

DOS PROGRAMS RUNNING
If you use the command prompt frequently to run MS-DOS programs or batch files, you can run several programs sequentially by typing Program1 && Program2 && Program3 at the prompt and then pressing Enter. The line shown here will run Program1 first and, if all is well, will then run Program2. If Program2 runs successfully, Program3 will run.
If you'd like to check this out, you can create a few batch files to work with. Open the command prompt and type (at the prompt)

Now press F6 and press Enter (pressing F6 will insert ^Z into the line).

Repeat the process for Program2.bat and Program3.bat. Now run the programs as shown above and you'll get

MAPPING HIDDEN HOME DIRECTORIES
If you use Windows NT server to provide shared home directories for Windows 95 users, you've probably dreaded the task of creating a separate logon script for each user that will map a drive letter to the user's home directory. However, you can use a simple technique to create a generic logon script that maps a drive letter to a user's home directory, which is hidden from other users.
First, create a shared home directory on your Windows NT server for each Windows  user. Give the share the same name as its user's username, but add a dollar sign to the end, as in Eric$
This will hide the share from view in Network Neighborhood. Be sure to assign each home directory's share permissions and NTFS permissions appropriately. Then use User Manager for Domains to open each user's User Properties sheet and specify the paths to the user's hidden home directory and the generic logon script. Then create the generic logon script, and add the command NET USE U: /HOME /YES to map the drive letter U to the user's home directory.
Now let's look at running more than one MS-DOS command on a line. Let's say that you'd like to run CHKDSK and then run MEM. Type at the command prompt chkdsk & mem and press Enter. This will run CHKDSK and then run MEM when CHKDSK finishes.

BRIEFCASE
When you install Windows NT Workstation 4.0, Briefcase is automatically installed. (When you install Windows 95, you have a choice concerning Briefcase). Most people seem to ignore Briefcase. However, if you use more than one computer, you can make good use of Briefcase.
Let's look at how to use Briefcase. Open Windows NT Explorer and copy a data file (Word, WordPerfect, whatever) into Briefcase. Right-click the file and choose Send To My Briefcase.
Now insert a formatted floppy disk into Drive A and move the Briefcase to the floppy by dragging its icon with the mouse. Next, open the data file and make some changes. After you've made a few changes, close the data file and double-click the Briefcase folder on the floppy disk in Drive A to open it. Choose Briefcase, Update All. When the dialog box opens, click Update.
If you make changes to the file in the Briefcase (on Drive A), Briefcase will update the file on the floppy. If you make changes to the file on the hard disk, the file in Briefcase (on the floppy) will be updated.
You may encounter a few problems creating new Briefcase folders and using Send To. Here's what happens.
Let's say you create a new Briefcase folder (right-click the desktop, choose New, Briefcase). The Briefcase will be named New Briefcase. Send To will only work with a Briefcase named My Briefcase. So, click the name of the new Briefcase twice and change its name to My Briefcase.
There's nothing magic about using Send To. If you prefer, you can simply copy files from Explorer to My Briefcase.

DISK ADMINISTRATOR
If you need to use Disk Administrator, you may want to make sure you save your current configuration before you start making changes. To do this, click Start and choose Programs, Administrative Tools, Disk Administrator. Now, before you start work, choose Partition, Configuration, Save. Insert a formatted floppy disk into Drive A and click OK.
Now go ahead and mess with the partitions. You can restore them later if you choose Partition, Configuration, Restore and click Yes.

DOS MEMORY?
If you need to run an old MS-DOS program, you may find that it needs to have some expanded memory available to work properly. To set up a program of this type, first create a shortcut to the program. To do this, use the right mouse button to drag the file's icon onto the desktop. Once you've created a shortcut right-click it and choose Properties. In the dialog box, click Memory. Now you can tell the system what type of memory you need.
In general, we can't tell you what settings to use because these settings are very dependent on the specific program you need to run. However, we do suggest that you use Auto in Expanded (EMS) memory. If this won't work, try some other settings. After you make all your selections, click OK.

SAVE SAVERS
Screen savers have several uses: They protect your screen from "burn-in" (though arguable with modern colour monitors), they hide your work from curious eyes while you're away from your desk, and they provide entertainment for you and those who pass your office. A screen saver can also provide some additional data protection if you use a password.
To set up one of the Windows NT screen savers, right-click the desktop and choose Properties. When the Display Properties dialog box opens, click the Screen Saver tab. Choose the screen saver you want to use and then click Settings to customise it. After you change some of the settings, click Preview to see how it will look on your screen.
If you'd like to use password protection, select the Password Protected check box and click OK. The screen saver will use your default system password. Note: If you use password protection, you'll find that there is a slight delay between the time the screen saver appears and the password protection takes place. If you move the mouse during this time, the Windows NT screen will re-appear without a password request. You may find this delay handy if the screen saver kicks on while you're at the computer--just move the mouse, or press a key, and the screen saver will deactivate.

FORMAT
There are at least two ways to format a disk: standard format and Quick Format. What's the difference? If you're sure the disk is okay, then you can save time using Quick Format. But if you're not sure, you'd better go for the full format. The Quick Format process doesn't check the disk as thoroughly, so a bad disk can get through.
To format a disk, open My Computer and right-click the disk's icon. Choose Format from the menu and then tell Windows NT you want to use Quick Format (standard format is the default). When you're ready, click Start.

BRIEFCASE
Briefcase is a handy utility that comes with Windows and Windows NT. If you commonly use a laptop, or a desktop when at home, you can use Briefcase to make sure the same data resides on all your computers. Here are a few pointers on its use.
Let's say you use a laptop when you're on the road. Put a blank formatted floppy disk into the A: drive and drag Briefcase to the floppy. Now go ahead with your work. When you're finished, drag the data files to the Briefcase on the A: drive.
Next time you're ready to work, put the floppy with Briefcase back into the A: drive. When you're finished working, open Briefcase and choose Briefcase, Update All. Briefcase will prompt you before it makes any changes. To continue, click Update. Now the files on the floppy will match the files on the hard disk.
When you get back to your office, open Briefcase and choose Briefcase, Update All and update the files on your office computer. Note that you can also update only one file if you wish. Just click the file in Briefcase to select it and then choose Briefcase, Update Selection.

BACKUPS
There are easy backup options now available in the form of Zip drives (and others of that type) and rewritable CD-ROM drives. These drives make backing up data very easy, since all you have to do is copy your data files to the disk, no special backup programs needed. One way to make doing everyday backups even easier is to write a batch file for the process. Try something like this: Open the Command prompt and type:

Copy con backup.bat
h:
md data
md util
xcopy /e /i /r c:\data h:\data /s
xcopy /e /i /r c:\util\*.* h:\util

BROADCASTING URGENT NETWORK MESSAGES
Here's a tip both you and your users can use. NT 4.0's Messenger Service makes it easy to broadcast urgent messages to other NT4.0 users on the network. To do so, open the Command Prompt window and use the NET SEND command with the following syntax:  NET SEND {computername| * |/DOMAIN[:domainname] /USERS} message
To broadcast an urgent message to everyone on the network, type  NET SEND * This is an urgent message! The Server is shutting down!
Then press the ENTER key. Everyone on the network running NT4.0 Workstation or Server will see your message. Do not enclose the message in quotes. To prevent broadcasts from reaching your desktop, you can stop this service in the Control Panel's Service applet.

TEXT EDITING
If you need to write a quick memo, give WordPad a try. WordPad is an almost complete word processor, sort of a miniature Word for Windows.
For the most part, WordPad acts like Word. If you want to select a word, double-click it. To select an entire paragraph, triple-click.  To select a single line, click once to the left of the line. To select the entire document, press Ctrl-A or hold down Ctrl and click to the left of the text.
WordPad will save files in the .txt, .doc (Word 6), and .rtf formats. Sorry, no spelling checker. You'll find WordPad in Accessories. Click Start and then choose Programs, Accessories, WordPad.

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
Here's a handy list of NT keyboard shortcuts:

If you press Print Screen  or Alt-Print Screen to copy the screen to the Clipboard, you can use Paint or Word to print the Clipboard contents. Just open the application and choose Edit, Paste. This will paste all Clipboard contents. Then choose File, Print for a paper copy.

FILE COMPRESSION
Self-extracting compressed files are becoming more common every day. These files are easy to work with. There's only one oversight that might possibly cause you a problem--the file's location.
Before you run a self-extracting .exe file, move it to an empty folder. If you don't, the files that extract will get jumbled up with the files already there. Also, if there are files of a same name in a folder (such as Setup), you may inadvertently overwrite a file that you don't want to lose.

COMMAND PROMPT
If you need to use the Command Prompt frequently, here's a feature that can help make your life easier. Let's say you've been working with some MS-DOS programs, and by this time you've entered quite a few commands. If you'd like to reuse some of those commands, or at least see what you've done, press F7. Your command history will pop up in the Command Prompt window. You can scroll through the commands and press Enter to execute a selected command.

INTERRUPTS
An interrupt conflict can be a true pain. To help you avoid such conflicts as much as possible (and solve them when you can't) here's a list of interrupt assignments.

BOOT.INI
Here's how we suggest editing Boot.ini: Copy Boot.ini to a file named Boot.txt. Then make Boot.txt a read-only file. Using Windows NT Explorer, right-click Boot.txt and choose Properties. When the dialog box opens, select Read Only and click OK. Now select Boot.ini and choose Properties, this time deselecting Read Only; click OK.

CUT & PASTE
Here's a trick that many NT users know about, but seldom use. This is too bad, in a way, because the technique provides an efficient way to copy or move files.
To try it, open Windows NT Explorer. Locate a file that you'd like to copy to a new folder. Now right-click the file and choose Copy. Navigate to the new folder and right-click it. This time, choose Paste, and there's your file.
If you want to move the file to a new folder, right-click it and choose Cut. Move to the new folder, right-click, and choose Paste. You'll be asked if you want to move the file. Click Yes to continue.

CLEAN UP YOUR DOCUMENTS
One way to manage the list is to get rid of it: Click Start and then choose Settings, Taskbar. When the Taskbar Properties dialog box opens, click Start Menu Programs. Click Clear and then OK to delete the current Documents list.
If you don't use the Documents list at all, or if you don't want the list to carry over from one session to another, you can write a batch file to delete the list contents automatically when you start the computer. This way, you'll have only the documents that you opened during the current session.
To write the batch file, open NotePad. Enter the following, keeping in mind that you may need to modify the path for your own system. Also, the "n" in the file shown refers to your Windows NT hard disk letter. del /q n:\winnt\profiles\administrator\recent\*.*
After you type in the line shown, choose File, Save As and name the file Cleanup.bat. To make the file run automatically, open Windows NT Explorer and locate your new file. Now use the right mouse button to drag the file to the appropriate Startup folder. In the case of our example, this is C:\Winnt\Profiles\Administrator\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. When you release the right mouse button, Windows NT will open a menu. Choose Create Shortcut(s) Here.
With the shortcut to Cleanup.bat in the Startup folder, your Documents list will be deleted each time you start or restart the computer.
Note that this applies only to the current desktop--other users won't have their files deleted.

PRINTER
To add a Printer panel to the Start menu, create a new folder (right-click the desktop and choose New, Folder). Name the folder exactly as follows: Printers.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
Now right-click Start and choose Open. Drag the new folder to the Start Menu window. You must type the name exactly as shown here. The period between Printers and the bracket is not a typo.

EXPLORER
If you're working with the command prompt and would like to open Windows NT Explorer, simply type Explorer /e and press Enter. This will open Explorer in the current directory. If you'd like to open a simple single-pane version of Explorer, type explorer . and press Enter.

EXPLORER SHORTCUT
If you liked the single-pane version of Explorer that we discussed in the last tip, you might like to put a shortcut on the desktop that will open the single-pane version for you.
Open Windows NT Explorer and navigate to \Winnt and locate Explorer.exe. Use the mouse to drag the Explorer.exe icon to the desktop to create a shortcut. Now right-click the shortcut and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Shortcut tab. Now click the Target text entry box and enter %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe .. (one space and two periods) to open a single-pane Explorer at the root folder of your Windows NT drive.

PAGING FILE SIZE
For the best performance, you should set the initial paging file size to 12MB more than your system RAM. To check or modify the paging file settings, right-click My Computer and choose Properties. When the System dialog box opens, click the Performance tab, click Virtual Memory, then Change to check your current settings. If the initial setting isn't the desired RAM + 12MB, select the drive on which you want the paging file to appear (or the one it's currently on) and type in Initial and Maximum settings. This should be RAM + 12MB for Initial and more, if you like, for Maximum (watch that hard disk space though). Now click Set and then click Close to close the dialog box and record your change.
You'll have to restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

REMOTE PROGRAM RUNNING
Running programs on a remote system can be a valuable diagnostic tool. However, when you're working with files on a remote system, you should resist the temptation to run a program just to look at some data. There are several good reasons to avoid running programs on a remote computer. First, they will run very slowly because of the speed of the phone line. If you use ISDN, the speed will be better, but still slow. Second, if you run programs over a phone line, you could cause a system hang-up. This can happen simply because all phone lines are subject to noise interference. Some noise at the wrong time can cause you to lose control. When you call a remote site, you're much better off restricting your session to file transfers.

AUTOMATIC MS-DOS?
You can press Ctrl-Shift-Esc to launch Task Manager in Windows NT 4.0. To do the same to launch the command you will have to add a keystroke to do the job. Right-click the Start button and choose Open. When the window opens, double-click the Programs icon. Now right-click the Command Prompt icon and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Shortcut tab. Now click in the entry box labelled Shortcut Key and type D (or whatever key you want to assign). When you do, Windows NT will finish the line, making it Ctrl-Alt-D. Click OK to save your change and close the dialog box. Now you can open the command prompt window by simply pressing Ctrl-Alt-D.

BATCH FILES
If you need to use several batch files, here's a situation you may well encounter. Let's suppose that you have a batch file that calls other batch files. You can run one batch file from another. All you have to do is enter something like this example:
This is the calling batch file. Let's name it CallIt.bat.

@echo off
echo This is line 1
echo This is line 2
Test.bat

This is the file that's run from CallIt.bat--Test.bat.

When you run CallIt.bat, it will display the two lines that are echoed and then run the batch file named Test.bat. So the output will look like this:

No problem there. But what if you'd like to use something more like this next example?

When you run this batch file, you'll get:

and that's all--no line 3. When you run Test.bat from your batch file, control is turned over to Test.bat. To solve the problem, use the Call instruction. For example, if you modify your batch file as follows, you can maintain control:

So, your batch file runs Test.bat, but when Test.bat finishes executing, control returns to the calling batch file.

EXPLORING
You don't have to go to all the trouble of putting an Explorer icon in your Start menu--it's already there. If you right-click the Start button, you can choose Explore, or Explore all Users to open the Explorer. If you have one of the newer keyboards, you can simply press Windows-E to open Explorer.

WINAT
If you've installed the Windows NT Resource Kit and decide to use the WinAT Command Scheduler, you could get the message: "The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect." Then, after you press OK a few times, WinAT will appear. The only problem is that when you try to use it, you get a Dr. Watson error.
This problem will occur when you install the Windows Resource Kit into a folder with a long file name. Unfortunately, WinAT can't handle those long file names. To correct the problem (or to avoid it) install the Windows Resource Kit to a folder with a standard short name.

CHECKDISK BUG
Here's a bug that could cause some serious anxiety. Let's say you decide to go to the Command Prompt and type Chkdsk n: /f where "n" is a drive letter.  Instead of getting what you expect in the Event Log, you get: Event ID: 41  Source: Disk    Description: The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the Chkdsk utility on the device   Device\Harddiskx\Partitionx with label x (NOTE: X is the partition's volume label).
The problem is that Chkdsk displays the wrong message. The message should be: Autochk will be run on this volume because user has selected it.

A NEW LOGO
Changing the Windows NT 4.0 startup logo.
The Windows NT 4.0 startup logo is in the \Winnt folder. There are actually two of them: Winnt.bmp and Winnt256.bmp. Winnt.bmp is used if your video system doesn't handle at least 256 colors. Otherwise, Winnt256.bmp is used. Since most people now have systems that handle more than 256 colors, the file name to use is Winnt256.bmp. If you'd like to use a different BMP file, simply click once on the name tag of Winnt256.bmp. Wait a second or so and then click again. Now you can change the file's name. We used "Winnt256.old." The system will ask if you want to change the extension; click Yes.
Now locate the BMP file you want to use, and name it "Winnt256.bmp." Move this file to \Winnt. You can use a file of almost any size, but for it to appear normal, it needs to be no larger than your screen. So, if your screen is 800 by 600, you should use a file of that size or less.
After you have your new file in place, restart the computer to view it as a startup logo. Note: If you choose Close All Programs and Log On as a New User, the logo may appear only very briefly. You need to restart the computer to get a good look at the new startup logo.
But suppose you like the default logo well enough--you'd just like to personalise it a bit.
Since the logo file Winnt256.bmp is a standard BMP file, you can easily edit it. Open Windows NT Explorer and navigate to \Winnt. Locate Winnt256.bmp and double-click its icon. The file will open in Paint. You can use the Paint tools to make whatever modifications you like.
Let's suppose you'd simply like to add your name or your company's name to the logo. First choose the colour by clicking White (or another colour that will show up over the dark blue background) at the bottom left of the window. Now click the Text tool (the big "A") and click where you want the text to appear. Choose your font and font size and then type in the info. Choose File, Save to save your changes. Choose File, Exit to close the program.
When you restart, your additions will appear in the logo.

START DOCUMENTS
Here's how to get rid of those long lists:
Open Windows NT Explorer and navigate to the root folder (usually c:\). Right-click in the right pane and choose New, Text Document. Name the new document "Clean.bat." You'll get a message about changing the extension--tell it to go ahead. After you've named your new document, right-click its icon and choose Edit. Type in the following: del /q n:\winnt\profiles\administrator\recent\*.*
Keep in mind that this example is for the administrator--you'll have to use a different path for other users.
With Clean in place in the root folder, use the right-mouse button to drag the icon to the desktop. When you release the button, choose Create Shortcut(s) Here. Now right-click the shortcut and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Shortcut tab. Now click the arrow at the right side of the Run entry box. Select Minimized from the list. When you double-click the Clean icon, the batch file will run invisibly and delete the entire Documents list.
If you'd like to always delete these files on startup, you can put a shortcut to Clean.bat into your Startup folder.

STARTUP
There are three Registry locations that may include references to these programs. In case you missed that tip, they are: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RUN
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RUN and (if user profiles are enabled): HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RUN
(Note: If you plan to delete references from the above locations, make sure to back up the Registry files--User.dat and System.dat--first, in case you make a mistake.)

The Startup folder. We saved the most obvious for last. To open this folder, right-mouse click the Start button, select open, double-click Programs, and then double-click Startup. (If you have IE 4.0 installed, navigate your way to this folder right on the Start menu, right-mouse click it, and select Open.) Is there a shortcut in there that looks like the culprit? Delete it!

COMMAND PROMPT
Can make the Command Prompt window larger, as you can in Windows 95? The answer is yes and no. You can make the Command Prompt window larger and make use of the new size, but this doesn't mean that existing MS-DOS programs will use the new size.
To size your window, right-click the Command Prompt icon and choose Properties. Click the Layout tab and use the Spin boxes to set your screen and buffer sizes. When finished, click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes. Now double-click the Command Prompt icon to open a window. You'll see that your window is now the size you specified. The only way to see how the new window will respond to a given program is to run the program. In most cases, resizing the Command Prompt window won't make any difference to the MS-DOS program--it will still run, but it will run in a standard-size window.
You can use the larger size for your own purposes, though--the larger size may make it easier for you to deal with batch files.

SYSTEM NAME
When you install Windows NT 4.0 Workstation along with another operating system, the Setup program determines the name of the alternate system. For example, if you install Windows NT 4.0 on a system that already runs under Windows 95, the Setup program will name the alternate system "Microsoft Windows." If you'd prefer it to read "Windows 95" or "Microsoft Windows 95," you can edit the name in Boot.ini.
Open Windows NT Explorer and then find Boot.ini in the root folder. Double-click the icon to open it and then save it as Boot.txt. Now that you have a backup, right-click Boot.ini and choose Properties. Deselect the Read Only check box and click OK. Now double-click the icon again to open it. Locate the line that reads "Microsoft Windows" and change it to "Windows 95" (or whatever you wish).
Now choose File, Save to save Boot.ini. Still in Windows NT Explorer, right-click the icon again and choose Properties. This time, select the Read Only check box to make the file read-only. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your change.

BOOT FILE
When you're fooling around in the root folder (perhaps editing Boot.ini) be very careful that you don't mess with a file named BOOTSECT.DOS (this name is the same whether your alternate system is MS-DOS or Windows). The boot loader uses this file to boot the alternate operating system. If it can't locate, or read, this file, you can't boot your alternate system.

SHELL
There's a quick way out of an Explorer Shell hang-up. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del and click Task Manager. Now choose File, New Task (Run) and type in Explorer.exe Click OK and your Explorer Shell will restart

NUMLOCK
You can turn Numlock on automatically for all users, rather than just one.
This is one of those RegEdit tips, so be careful in there. Click Start, Run, type regedit and click OK (or press Enter). When RegEdit opens, go to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Keyboard.
If InitialKeyboardIndicators is set to zero (0), Numlock will be disabled after the log-on (regardless of your BIOS setting). To enable Numlock, double-click the InitialKeyboardIndicators icon and enter 2 in place of the default 0. Click OK and then exit RegEdit.
Note that this change applies only to profiles created after the change is made. If you delete your profile folder, then log off and log back on, NT will create a new profile with the Numlock change enabled.

OPEN IT IN NOTEPAD - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
There are times when you want to open a file such as Read.me, Autoexec.old, or Bootlog.prv. All of these files have one thing in common--they are "unknown" files that have no associated program. Because what you want to do most often is open the file in NotePad to read it, why not make NotePad the default for unknown files? To do this, you need to edit the Registry. So be careful, and let's get started. Click Start, Run, type regedit and press Enter. Now navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Unknown\shell. Click Shell and then right-click in RegEdit's right pane. Choose New, Key and name the new key "Open." Now click the new Open key and right-click in the right pane. Choose New, Key again and this time, name it "Command." Double-click the (Default) icon and when the dialog box opens, type notepad.exe %1 and click OK. Close RegEdit (choose Registry, Exit) and restart the computer.
Now you can double-click any icon with an unknown extension, and it will open in NotePad. Of course, not all files will open in NotePad, but those that won't will let you know.

CUT TO THE TASKBAR
Want instant access to all the contents of a folder, without having to open that folder? If you have Internet Explorer 4.0 installed, you can turn any folder into a Taskbar toolbar. Simply click and drag a folder, such as My Computer, to a blank area on the Taskbar. (You'll know it's a "blank" area because the black circle-with-the-line-through-it icon will disappear from your mouse pointer.) Let go, and each item inside the folder now appears as a toolbar item.

Once the folder's contents appear on your Taskbar, you can resize this new toolbar just like any other. Hold the mouse pointer over the vertical line on its left edge, and when the pointer changes to a double-pointed arrow, click and drag in either direction. To delete the toolbar, right-mouse-click this same vertical line (or any blank area on the Taskbar), select Toolbars, and deselect the folder name in the pop-out list.

HANDY DESKTOP - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
In a recent tip, we described a way to put a desktop icon in the taskbar. Another method is to run Windows NT Explorer and go to \Winnt\Profiles\Username\Desktop (where Username is the name you use in Win NT). Now right-click Start and choose Open. Use the right-mouse button to drag the Desktop icon from Windows NT Explorer to the Start menu. Release the mouse button and, when the menu appears, choose Copy.
This procedure produces a Start menu item that acts like a standard Start menu item. That is, when you move the mouse pointer over the item, a submenu opens.

A COMMAND PROMPT - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
There's a way to add a Command prompt command to the menu you get when you right-click a folder (in Explorer, or on the desktop). Selecting the command would then open a Command Prompt window at the folder path. Run Windows NT Explorer (or open My Computer) and choose View, Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the File Types tab. Now locate Folder and select it. Click Edit. Click New to open the New Action dialog box. Type Command Prompt in the Action: entry box, and type cmd.exe in the Application Used to Perform Action entry box. Click OK, and when you get back to the Edit File Type dialog box, click OK again. Back in Options, click Close.
Now you can right-click a folder and choose Command Prompt to open a Command Prompt window at the folder's path. For example, we have an Office folder on the desktop. If we right-click that folder and choose Command prompt, the Command Prompt window opens at the path to the folder (C:\WINNT\Profiles\Administrator\Desktop\Office).

ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
Want to get rid of ghost listings in Add/Remove (Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove). Ghost listings are programs that no longer exist on the computer. You'll get ghost listings if you delete a program without using Add/Remove. And you sometimes get ghost listings even when you DO use Add/Remove to uninstall a program.

There is a way to delete these listings, but they require that you edit the Registry. So be careful and before you start, make absolutely sure that you do want to get rid of a listing. If the program still exists, you won't be able to uninstall it once you've deleted the listing.

Click Start and choose Run. Type regedit and click OK (or press Enter). Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Uninstall and locate the offending entry. Select it and press Delete. Close RegEdit and restart the computer.

NETWORKED DOS - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
Using the Command Prompt with networked drives. This is no problem, provided you map the drives. Open Network Neighborhood and double-click the computer with which you want to work. Now right-click the drive you want to map and choose Map Network Drive. Notice which drive letter is assigned to the drive.
Now open a Command Prompt window and type in the new drive letter. You can now work with the new drive in the Command Prompt window.

RAS REMOTE ACCESS - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
Interested in finding out if you can use Briefcase from a remote laptop using Windows 95? You can--as long as you have RAS installed so you can call in to your Windows NT Workstation 4.0 system.
Before you leave on that trip, put the necessary documents into the Briefcase on the laptop. Now, call your system and move the Briefcase to a location on the NT system. Note that the Briefcase icon will disappear from the laptop. This is normal.
Now make a few minor changes to the document on your laptop. Call your system now and open the Briefcase on the system computer. Now you can update the Briefcase to get your files in sync.

ATTRIBUTES
When you use Xcopy at the Command Prompt to copy a group of files, all read-only attributes are reset by default. If you need to make sure you keep all your files' read-only attribute set, type xcopy (whatever) /k and press Enter.
If you'd like to check this, open the Command Prompt window and type copy con test.bin and press Enter. Now enter xxx and press Enter.Next, press F6 and press Enter.
Now type attrib +r test.bin and press Enter. To make sure the read-only attribute is set, type attrib test.bin and press Enter. You should see the "r" that indicates a read-only file.
Next, insert a floppy disk into Drive A and type xcopy test.bin a: Press Enter to make the copy. If you type attrib a:\test.bin and press Enter, you'll find that the read-only attribute is missing. But if you use xcopy text.bin a: /k and press Enter, the attribute will remain as you can see by typing attrib a:\test.bin again.

DISABLE AUTORUN
If you prefer life without Autorun, this tip is for you.
Disabling Autorun requires you to edit the Registry and you know what we always say about editing the Registry--be careful. Click Start, Run. Type regedit and press Enter. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom
In the RegEdit right pane, locate Autorun and double-click its icon. Change the one (1) to zero (0) and click OK. Close RegEdit (choose Registry, Exit) and restart the computer.

The following is a reg file that will make the changes without editing the Registry
Click Start, Programs, Accessories, Notepad. Type in the following as shown except for the line numbers. We have inserted the line numbers to show you which data goes on each line.

1. REGEDIT4
2.
3. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Cdrom]
4.
5. "Autorun"=dword:00000000

Choose File, Save As and name the file Auto.reg. Save it in a convenient folder. Double-click Auto.reg to merge its data with the Registry.
If you decide to turn Autorun back on, you can create another REG file. Once again, run Notepad and enter:

1. REGEDIT4
2.
3. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Cdrom]
4.
5. "Autorun"=dword:00000001

Name this file AutoOn.reg and save it. To turn on AutoRun, just double-click the AutoOn.reg icon.
Note: Some software may not like having AutoRun turned off.

STOP CONDITIONS
You can choose how Windows NT Workstation 4.0 will behave when it encounters a Stop condition. Click Start and choose Settings, Control Panel. Double-click System and then click Startup/Shutdown.
When a computer is sharing a number of resources, such as a printer or folders that other users need to access, you might want to select Automatically Reboot. After you make the selection, click OK and Windows NT will prompt for a restart.
The disadvantage to using this option is that you'll get less information about the Stop in the Event log. In some cases, you may not even know that an error has occurred. You'll have to weigh the advantages and disadvantages in your own situation.

FOLDER DELAYS
When you choose a menu item that opens a submenu, Windows NT 4.0 inserts a small delay. This delay prevents a bunch of submenus from opening as you move through a menu. If you prefer to do without the delay (or want it longer), you can use RegEdit to change it.
As usual, be very careful when using RegEdit--you can cause some serious system damage if you make an incorrect change. With that in mind, click Start and choose Run. Type regedit and click OK (or press Enter). When RegEdit opens, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. In RegEdit's right pane, locate MenuShowDelay and double-click its icon to open it. When the dialog box opens, type 0 (zero) for no delay or a larger number than the default to get a longer delay. Close RegEdit and restart the computer.

DUAL BOOTING & MODEMS
Modem installation in Windows NT Workstation 4.0 is an especially tricky procedure when you dual-boot with Windows 95. The problem is that Windows 95 is a Plug-and-Play system, and NT 4 is not. So, if you install a modem in Plug-and-Play mode in Windows 95, you'll stand a greater risk of having problems getting the modem installed in Windows NT Workstation 4.0.
We suggest that you set your modem manually if this is an option. For example, since you most likely have COM1 and COM2 on the system motherboard, set the modem to COM3. If you end up with COM port conflicts, you may be able to set the COM ports in your BIOS. Eg set your modem to 03E8, INT 04 (COM3) and then used the following settings to avoid conflicts.

With the ports set up, open Control Panel again and double-click the Modems icon. Click Add and follow the wizard through the install. If you have a disk from the manufacturer, use it when the option appears. If you don't have a disk, you'll have to install the generic modem that most closely matches your modem's speed and features.
If you continue having problems with installation, you may need to contact the modem manufacturer for an updated NT 4.0 driver.
If you can't access your BIOS to set the ports, you will also need to contact the modem manufacturer. Note: If you change the BIOS settings, you may have to reinstall the modem in Windows 95.

MAPPING NETWORK DRIVES
If you're working in Windows NT Explorer, you can map your network drives quickly. All you have to do is choose Tools, Map Network Drive. When the Map Network Drive dialog box opens, double-click the computer that contains the drive you want to map. Now click the drive to select it and then click OK. The dialog box will record your change and close. You can also use the Map Network Drive dialog box to disconnect a mapped drive.

The problem is that mapping a network drive when the remote computer isn't available returns an unavailable message. To map a network drive, double-click Network Neighborhood and then right-click the drive you want to map. Choose Map Network Drive and look at the Map Network Drive dialog box. You'll probably see that Reconnect at Logon is selected. Deselect it and click OK.
Double-click My Computer to open it. Make a shortcut on the desktop of your newly mapped network drive. Now, you'll get no message if the remote computer is turned off, because Windows NT Workstation 4.0 won't attempt to connect to the remote drive on startup. All you have to do to connect to the drive is open it. Upon the Open request, NT will connect to the drive. If the remote isn't turned on, you'll get a message telling you that the drive is unavailable. But you'll no longer get the automatic message at startup.

MAXIMIZE YOUR WINDOW
Is there a way to make sure a program's window always opens at the same size. The answer is no and yes. No, you can't be sure that a window will always open at any specified size. But you can make a window open at full size every time. Let's see how this works by setting Solitaire to always open maximised.
Run Windows NT Explorer and select the \Winnt\System32 folder. In this folder, locate Sol.exe. Use the right-mouse button to drag the Sol.exe icon to the desktop. When you release the button, a pop-up menu will appear. From this menu, choose Create Shortcut(s) Here.
Now right-click your new shortcut and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Shortcut tab. Next, click the arrow at the right side of the Run list box to expand the list. Select Maximized from the list and click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes. When you run Solitaire by clicking the shortcut, the program will always run in a maximised window.

WILDCARDS
You can use wildcards to change directories in the Windows NT 4.0 Workstation Command Prompt window. This is a big help if you need to go to a directory with a long name. Let's suppose, for example, that you're in the root directory of drive C and you'd like to move to the Program Files directory (folder). You can type cd\prog* press Enter, and there you are.
What if you have more than one match? Don't worry--NT won't get confused and hang up; you'll simply end up at the first folder that matches the wildcard specs. You can check this out, if you like. Open the Command Prompt window and (from the root), type md "Program Files and Much More" If you now enter cd\prog* as before, you'll still end up at c:\Program Files. But if you type cd\prog*mu* and press Enter, Windows NT will take you to c:\Program Files and Much More.
When you finish with your testing, you may want to get rid of that new directory. To do this, go to the root directory (cd\) and type rd \"Program Files and Much More" then press Enter.

NUMLOCK ON
Having problems forcing Numlock on at startup? Service Pack 3 should eliminate if not type the following into a Notepad document exactly as shown:

After you type in all the data, choose File, Save As and name the file something like Num.reg. You can change the name (Num), but the extension (reg) is necessary. Save the file in the folder of your choice and then choose File, Exit to close Notepad.
Double-click the Num.reg icon to run the file. When your new data is successfully loaded into the Registry, Windows NT will open a dialog box informing you that the import was successful.
Note that using Reg files in Windows NT 4 is somewhat risky because many keys vary depending on your setup. Use this file at your own risk.

STARTUP LOGO
Here's another way to change the Windows NT Workstation 4.0 start-up logo. This method requires you to modify some Registry settings. As usual, we must caution you that incorrect Registry settings can disable your system. Be careful.

Click Start, Run, type regedit and click OK. When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop In the right pane, look for the Wallpaper string. Double-click the Wallpaper icon and then enter the full name of the file you want to use in place of the default. Note that you must enter the full path and name. For example, if you have a file in the c:\Pictures folder that you'd like to use as a logo, you'd enter c:\pictures\newWall.bmp
After you type in the new name, click OK. Now close RegEdit (Registry, Exit).

RUN BOX
You can use the Run dialog box to open folders. This is an especially useful technique when you want to open a network drive quickly. Let's say that you need to access a folder named Remote on a computer named PCWorld. You'd click Start, Run and type in \\PCworld\Remote. When you click OK, the remote folder will open. You can also open a local folder using Run. If you click Start, Run and enter c:\data when you click OK, the Data folder will open.

MY COMPUTER
If you prefer to have My Computer (and all other folders) open in Windows NT Explorer then run Windows NT Explorer and choose View, Options. Now click the File Types tab and locate Folder. Click Folder to select it and then click Edit.
In the Edit File Type dialog box, click Explore to select it and then click Set Default. Now click Close, and when you get back to the Options dialog box, click Close again. Now close Explorer (choose File, Exit). When you double-click My Computer, it will open in Explorer. If you want to open My Computer as a standard folder, right-click its icon and choose Open.

WHATEVER DRIVE LETTER YOU WANT
There's a way to permanently change the drive assignment without making any hardware changes. So let's look at how you can use Disk Administrator to change the drive designations.
Why would you want to change the CD's drive designations? Let's imagine that you just installed a new CD-ROM drive--and you want to use the new one as your primary drive. The only thing is, the Setup program installed it as Drive E rather than D. Now, you decide to add something to one of your programs, and the Setup looks for files on Drive D. So, you may want to make the new drive Drive D.
Click Start, Programs, Administrative Tools (Common), Disk Administrator. Choose View, Volumes. Now click Drive D to select it and then choose Tools, Assign Drive Letter. When the Assign Drive Letter dialog box opens, use the spin box to select an unused letter--something like X will do. Click OK and then click Yes in the next dialog box.

This is probably a good time to discuss saving your drive configurations. Have a blank, formatted, floppy disk available and Run Disk Administrator (Start, Programs, Administrative Tools [Common], Disk Administrator) and choose Partition, Configuration, Save. The program will prompt you to place a floppy disk into Drive A. Insert the floppy and click OK.
To restore a saved disk configuration, put the floppy disk that contains the saved data into drive A, run Disk Administrator and choose Partition, Configuration, Restore. After the restoration is complete, Windows NT will restart the computer.

BACK IT UP
Want to make backup copies of the Registry files--something similar to the way you can copy the System.dat and User.dat files in Windows 95. Here's how:
All the Registry files are located in \Winnt\System32\Config. If you copy this directory to another location (preferably on another drive), you'll have a complete backup.
The problem with this is simply that the Config folder is likely to be very large (ours is 5.5MB), and you'll never fit it onto a floppy. However, if you have a Zip Drive, a CD Recorder, or some other removable storage device, you can copy the files to that and then keep the disk in a safe place. If you get a warning that some files are in use, restart the computer and try again.

DELETE ON START
Want to automatically delete some files when a given user logs on. For example, you might want to delete all the TMP files in your Data folder.
One way to accomplish this is to use a batch file. In our example, if you want to delete all the TMP files in your Data folder, open Notepad and enter del c:\data\*.tmp Now choose File, Save As and give the file a name. You can use any name you want, but you need to use the BAT extension. DelTemp.bat would work.
After you save your new batch file, run Windows NT Explorer and locate the Startup folder for the appropriate user (you'll find it under Winnt\Profiles). Now use the right-mouse button to drag the DelTemp.bat icon to the Startup folder. When you release the mouse button, choose Create Shortcut(s) Here from the pop-up menu.
Now open the Startup folder and right-click the new shortcut. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Shortcut tab. Click the arrow at the right side of the Run list box to expand the list. Select Minimized and click OK. When the appropriate user logs on, the batch file will run, deleting those pesky TMP files.

DIRECTORY SWITCHES
To view a page at a time Type s |more and press Enter.
To view only the directories (no files), type dir /s /ad
You can use the /p switch to pause. So, dir /s /ad /p will present all the directories one page at a time when you press Enter.
To view all the subdirectories in the current directory, type dir /ad /p and press Enter.

USE THE WHOLE DISK
If you use more than one hard disk drive or more than one partition, you can easily use any currently unused space by turning that space into a Volume or Stripe set. To see if you have any free space, click Start, Programs, Administrative Tools (Common), Disk Administrator. When Disk Administrator opens, choose View, Disk Configuration. If you see two areas of unassigned free space, click the first one, and then press Ctrl and click the second space. This selects both areas.
Let's say that your free space appears on two partitions of the same disk drive. Choose Partition, Create Volume Set. When the Create Volume Set dialog box opens, click OK to continue. This will create a single volume using both areas of free space.
To format your new volume, right-click it and choose Assign Drive Letter. When the dialog box opens, assign a drive letter and click OK. Right-click the new volume again, and this time choose Commit Changes Now. When the confirmation dialog box opens, click Yes. Now, right-click the volume and choose Format. When the format dialog box opens, click Start.
Note: Make sure you right-click the new volume and not some other volume--you don't want to accidentally format an existing drive or partition.
When the formatting finishes, click Close. Now close Disk Administrator (choose Partition, Exit) and start using your new volume.

If you use more than one hard disk drive, you may well have free space on both drives. If so, you can create a Stripe Set rather than a Volume Set. A Stripe set offers greater disk throughput, although you probably won't notice any difference using the small amount of free space that we're describing.
To create the strip Set, click Start, Programs, Administrative Tools (Common), Disk Administrator. When Disk Administrator opens, choose View, Disk Configuration. If you see two areas of unassigned free space (one on each physical disk drive), click the first one, then press and hold down Ctrl while you click the click the second space.
With both spaces selected, choose Partition, Create Stripe Set. When the Create Stripe Set dialog box opens, click OK. Now, right-click the Stripe Set and choose Assign Drive Letter. Select a drive letter and click OK. Right-click the new Stripe Set and choose Commit Changes Now. This will open a dialog box asking if you really want to save the changes. Click Yes to continue. Right-click the Stripe Set again and choose Format. When the Format dialog box opens, click Start. Click Yes in any warning dialog boxes and then click Close when the formatting is finished. You can close Disk Administrator now and start using your new Stripe Set.

CLICK HERE TO BEGIN
To get rid of the arrow and the message "Click Here to Begin" when NT opens requires a Registry edit and, as usual, we must warn you that it's entirely possible to thoroughly mess up your system if you change the wrong thing in the Registry.
To get rid of the arrow and its companion message, click Start, Run, type regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
In the right pane, double-click the NoStartBanner icon. When the Edit Binary Value dialog box opens, you'll notice that the default value is 00 00 00 00 change it to 01 00 00 00 and click OK. Now close RegEdit (choose Registry, Exit) and restart the computer. You'll no longer see the offending arrow and message.

MOVE IT TO THE TRASH
Is there an easy way to recover files deleted at the Command prompt using NTFS. There really isn't a good way to recover deleted files. However, you could delete your files to a Trash directory until you're sure you don't want them any longer. Let's create a batch file to do the job.
Before you create the batch file, open a Command Prompt window and make sure you're at the root directory. If you're not, type cd\ and press Enter. Now type md c:\Trash and press Enter to create a new directory named Trash. Now, to create the batch file, run Notepad (or the text editor of your choice) and type move %1 c:\Trash
Choose File, Save As and name the file Delete.bat (you can use a different name, but you must use the BAT extension). Save the file in the root directory.
To see how Delete.bat operates, open a Command Prompt Window and type copy con 1.rrr Press Enter a few times and then press F6 to close the file. Now type Delete 1.rrr and your 1.rrr file will be moved to the Trash directory. You'll need to remember to clean out the Trash directory periodically.
Note that Delete.bat will not move a file that already exists in the Trash folder. For example, if you created a new 1.rrr file, Delete.bat would decline to move it until you delete the one in the Trash directory.

EASTER EGG
Right-click the Windows NT 4.0 desktop and choose Properties. When the Display Properties dialog box opens, click the Screen Saver tab.
Now, click the arrow at the right side of the Screen Saver list box to expand the list. Select 3D Text (OpenGL) from the list. Click Settings and change the text to Not Evil and click OK. Now click Preview and you'll see the names of the people on the Windows NT development team.

STARTUP ORDER
The problem is that there is no native way to arrange the starting sequence in the StartUp folder. However, you can write a batch file to do the job for you.
Let's say you want to run Notepad and Solitaire (both minimised) when the computer starts. To write such a batch file, run Notepad (or your favourite text editor) and enter
start /min notepad.exe
start /min sol.exe

Choose File, Save As and give it a name using the BAT extension. Locate a nice, safe folder for the new file and click Save. Right-click Start and choose Open. When the Start window opens, double-click Programs to open it. You should now see the StartUp folder. Now, run Windows NT Explorer and locate your new file. Use the right-mouse button to drag its icon to your StartUp folder and choose Create Shortcut(s) Here from the menu that appears when you release the mouse button.
In the StartUp folder, right-click the new shortcut and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Shortcut tab. Click the arrow at the right side of the Run list box to expand the list and then select Minimized from the list. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes.
When you restart the computer, Notepad will start first and then Solitaire. You won't see the batch file run because you told it to run minimised.

USER ID CONFLICT
When connecting to a share on another system (for example, MACHINEA), you might suddenly receive the following message: "The credentials supplied conflict with an existing set of credentials."
This occurs when you have connected to the machine with another user ID. If you are not aware of what user ID you used and you want to use another ID, you can disconnect the previous share by entering the following command: NET USE \\MACHINEA\IPC$ /DELETE  You should now be able to successfully reconnect to MACHINEA.

ICONS REDRAW
To change the redraw lag requires a Registry edit and as always be careful when modifying the Registry.
Run RegEdit (click Start, Run, type regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer. Right-click in the right pane and choose New, DWORD Value. Name the new DWORD Max Cached Icons. Now, double-click the new entry and, when the Edit DWORD Value dialog box opens, enter 8000 and click OK. Close RegEdit by choosing Registry, Exit, and restart the computer.

BOOT IN "X" SECONDS
To set the boot time in a dual boot computer without editing Boot.ini click Start and choose Settings, Control Panel. When Control panel opens, double-click the System icon. When the System dialog box opens, click the Startup/Shutdown tab. Under System Startup, you'll see a spin box labelled Show list for XX seconds. Use the spin box to set the number of seconds you want the system to wait before automatically starting the default operating system.
After you set the time, click OK to close the dialog box and save your change. The next time you restart, the new time will take effect.

MILITARY TIME
If you like to have the time reported in military format, you may not want the colon that is used as a separator. Military time doesn't use a separator at all (Amateur radio operators also use this format). Without the separator, 10 AM is displayed as 1000, not 10:00, and 1 PM is displayed as 1300 rather than 13:00.
You can get rid of the colon with a simple Registry edit. Or you can use the REG file listed here. To create the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following exactly as shown.

Choose File, Save As and name the file Time.reg. Locate a folder for your new file and then click Save. Now, open the folder that contains your new file and double-click its icon. Next, restart the computer. When NT restarts, the time string in the taskbar will no longer display the separator.

GOT A NEW SOUND CARD?
We recently installed a new Sound Blaster Plug and Play card. Getting Windows NT 4.0 to use the new card was a more painful operation than we had expected. Here's how to remove the pain and still get the card installed.
Make sure you have Service Patch 3 installed. If it isn't, you'll need to install it now. With SP3 installed, click Start, Settings, Control Panel. When Control Panel opens, double-click the Multimedia icon. Click the Devices tab and remove the current drivers. Close Multimedia (and Control Panel, too, if you like).
Put your Windows NT 4.0 CD into the CD-ROM drive and locate Pnpisa.inf (you'll find it in \Drvlib\Pnpisa\x86). Right-click the INF file and choose Install. Now, restart the computer.
When the computer restarts, you'll get a New Hardware Found message. Insert your Creative Labs disc (or floppy) and proceed from there.

DUAL BOOT WITH 98
If you run a dual boot computer with Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 95, you may be interested in upgrading to Windows 98. If so, you should have no problems with your dual boot system. All you have to do is upgrade the Windows 95 installation to Windows 98. Your Windows NT Workstation 4.0 installation should run as before.
Windows 98 includes a utility that will convert the standard FAT16 disks to FAT32. Since Windows NT Workstation 4.0 can't view FAT32 disks, don't use this option. Also, the disk compression used by Windows 98 (like the one used by Windows 95) produces disks that are not accessible to Windows NT Workstation 4.0. Other than these items, Windows 98 seems to co-exist well with Windows NT Workstation 4.0.

MENU DELAY
When you move the mouse through a Windows NT Workstation 4.0 menu, you'll notice that there is a delay before the submenu opens. There's a purpose for this: You don't expand every submenu that you move past as you scroll through the menu. However, some people would like either more or less delay. You can make this delay as short or as long as you like.
You'll find the key that controls the menu speed at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. The key name is MenuShowDelay, and it accepts entries from 0 (zero) to 65535. Zero represents minimum delay, and 65535 is the maximum delay.
We've generated a REG file that will change the speed for you. To create the file, run Notepad and enter the following exactly as shown:

Now choose File, Save As and name the file Delay.reg. Locate a folder that you want to use for the file and click Save. The file as shown will set the menu delay to its minimum. If you want to change the delay to something other than the minimum, change the zero to another number. The only way you can really get exactly what you want is to experiment with a variety of values. All you have to do is open the REG file for editing and then change the value. Make sure you always keep the value between the quotation marks. The quotation marks are necessary. Then save the file and run it. Each time you run the file, you'll need to restart the computer (or log on again).

HOW DO I COMPRESS FOLDERS?
want to compress some of the folders on the NTFS Windows NT Workstation 4.0 partition to save some disk space? The problem is that compression doesn't seem to be an option. The question is how do you compress a Windows NT Workstation 4.0 folder?
To compress a folder (or a file), run Windows NT Explorer and locate the folder you want to compress. Right-click the folder and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the General tab (if necessary). Now, select the check box labelled Compress and then click OK. This opens a dialog box that with the options OK and Cancel. It also contains a check box labelled Also Compress Subfolders. If you want to compress all the subfolders in the folder, along with all the files, select this check box and click OK to continue.
If your newly compressed files fail to appear in an alternate colour to show that they're compressed in Windows NT Explorer, choose View, Options and click the View tab when the Options dialog box opens. Select Display Compressed Files and Folders With Alternate Color and click OK.
As to why compression may not be an option--Windows NT Workstation 4.0 will only compress files and folders on an NTFS disk with a cluster size of less than 4K. When the cluster size is larger than 4K, compression is very inefficient and not worth the space savings.

DEFRAG THAT NTFS VOLUME
Even NTFS volumes need to be defragmented now and then. There's no doubt that your disk operations will get a new lease on life with less fragmentation. Unfortunately, Windows NT Workstation 4.0 doesn't include a defrag utility. But Diskeeper Lite from Execsoft will do the job for you.
If you'd like to try Diskeeper Lite, go to http://www.execsoft.com/dklite/ <http://www.execsoft.com/dklite/ and click Download. You'll be asked to fill out Execsoft's Guest Book before you begin. Although previous versions of Diskeeper Lite for the Intel platform had a 30-day expiration, this one is free and has no expiration. Note that, because the program is free, there is no support. If you decide you want the features of the full version, all you have to do is request the upgrade.

SHUTDOWN ONLY AFTER LOG-ON
By default, you can shut down Windows NT Workstation 4.0 without logging on. If you don't wish to allow users to do this, you can make a Registry change that will eliminate the option. As usual, be very careful when editing the Registry. Now click Start, Run, type regedit and click OK (or press Enter) to run RegEdit. When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon In the right pane, locate ShutdownWithoutLogon and double-click its icon. When the Edit String dialog box opens, change the entry from its default value of 1 to 0 (zero). Close RegEdit by choosing Registry, Exit. Now, restart the computer.
When the computer restarts, you'll notice that the shutdown option is no longer available. The only way to shut down is to first log on.

REGEDIT SAFETY
We often suggest Registry edits--and we often comment on the problems that can occur if you make a mistake using one of the Registry editors. Let's look at a way to make your Registry edits safer.
If you want to edit a value using RegEdit, the safest thing to do is save the key before you make changes. Let's say that you're going to make a change in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. Before you make the change, click the Winlogon key and choose Registry, Export Registry File. Give the file a name you can remember (say, "Winlog") and click Save. With this key saved, you can later double-click the REG file to restore the original Registry settings.

BACKUP FILE NAMES
Although NTBackup doesn't allow spaces in the path name of the files you want to back up, the short file names will always work. For example, if a backup file is named C:\Program Files\Mail\Data You'll have a problem with the space. However, if you use the short name version of the Program Files folder as shown here C:\Progra~1\Mail\Data you'll have no problems.

SIGNING ON AGAIN
If you use the automatic log-on (described in a recent tip), can you still log on as another user?
To log on as another user, click Start and then choose Shut Down. Select the radio button labelled Close All Programs and Log On as a Different User? Click Yes and hold down the Shift key while Windows NT restarts. When Windows NT Workstation 4.0 restarts, the sign-in box will appear. Just type in the new name and associated password.

CUSTOM LOG-ON MESSAGES
Adding a custom log-on message requires you to edit the Registry, so be careful. Click Start, Run, type regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. Look in the right pane for entries named LegalNoticeCaption and LegalNoticeText. If the two entries already exist, you can add the text you want to use for the title in LegalNoticeCaption. Double-click the LegalNoticeCaption icon, enter your text, and press Enter. Repeat for LegalNoticeText. After you've entered your text, close RegEdit (choose Registry, Exit) and restart the computer.
If the two entries don't exist, right-click in the right pane and choose New, String Value. Name the new entry LegalNoticeCaption. Now, create a new entry named LegalNoticeText. Enter text into the new entries as described above.

AUTOMATIC SHUTDOWN
There is a Registry edit to allow automatic shutdown but if you make the change, all Windows NT Workstation 4.0 will do is restart the computer. To automatically power down the computer, you need a file named HAL.DLL from your motherboard manufacturer. The HAL.DLL file must be modified to handle Windows NT Workstation 4.0. If you have the file, you can run RegEdit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon and change PowerdownAfterShutdown to 1 (one). Unless you have the modified HAL.DLL, don't make this change--it will simply cause Windows NT Workstation 4.0 to restart.

UPDATE - Power down a Windows NT Workstation 4.0 computer automatically feature doesn't appear to work on an ATX computer with a Windows NT Workstation 4.0 installation, however, you can try replacing Hal.dll with Hal.dll.softex from the Service Pack 5 disk.
Of course, we have no way of knowing this will work on your specific computer, but if you would like to try it, run Windows NT Explorer and copy Hal.dll.softex from your Service Pack 5 disc to the \Winnt\System32 folder. Now move to the System32 folder and rename Hal.dll to Hal.xxx (or whatever you want). Next, rename Hal.dll.softex to Hal.dll and restart the computer.
The next time you choose Shutdown, your system should power down after Windows NT Workstation 4.0 finishes its shutdown sequence.

OPEN EXPLORER HERE
You can force Windows NT Explorer to open in a designated folder--and display only that folder?
Let's assume that you have a Windows NT Explorer shortcut on your desktop. Now, let's say that you'd like to have Explorer open in the D:\ folder and display only the contents of D:\. Right-click the shortcut icon and choose Properties. Click the Shortcut tab and then click in the Target entry box. Delete the current contents and type in Explorer.exe /e,/root,D:\
Click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes. When you double-click the Explorer shortcut icon, the program will open in the D:\ folder.

SETTING ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The logon script processor for Windows NT logon scripts does not allow you to set environment variables in Windows 95. If you need to do so, you can use the Winset.exe utility, which you'll find on the Windows 95 CD in the \Admin\Apptools\Envars folder. The Winset.exe utility is a Win32 console application that when called from a Windows NT logon script or a batch file allows you to set an environment variable in the Windows global environment. You use the Winset.exe utility to set environment variables just like you'd use the old MS-DOS Set command. For example, the command "Winset user=joe" would set the user environment variable equal to joe. However, keep in mind that the Winset.exe utility can't display the current environment variables; to do so, you must open an MS-DOS Prompt window and use the Set command.

REGEDIT32 v REGEDIT
RegEdit is the newer of the two, having been written for Windows 95. RegEdit features an Explorer-like interface that makes it somewhat easier to use. Some people appear to believe that using RegEdit will damage the Registry. This is not true. According to Microsoft, you can use either editor to "add, delete, or modify Registry entries." So, use whichever editor you feel most comfortable using.
RegEdit does not support all the NT data types and does not support Windows NT Registry Security. However, it works just fine for most edits.

EDITING INI FILES
When you need to edit the Win.ini or System.ini files, why not use a tool designed for the job? If you open Windows NT Explorer and navigate to \Winnt\System32, you'll find a file named Sysedit.exe. When you run this program, it opens with Autoexec.bat, Config.sys, Win.ini, and System.ini. Click the file you want to edit and make your changes. When you're finished, choose File, Save to save your changes. To exit the program, choose File, Exit.

WRONG CD
If you add a CD-ROM drive, Windows NT still looks at the previous drive letter. You can make a Registry change to tell Windows NT Workstation 4.0 to use a different source CD-ROM drive.
Be careful when editing the Registry. Click Start and choose Run. Now, type regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion. In the right pane, look for SourcePath. Double-click the SourcePath icon and enter your new path. For example, if the CD-ROM drive you want to use is Drive E, enter e:\i386 and click OK.
Now, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup and double-click the SourcePath icon in the right pane. Enter the same source path as before (e:\i386 for example) and click OK. Choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit and then restart the computer.

INSTALL NETWORKING BEFORE SERVICE PACK
If you install Windows NT Workstation 4.0 and then install Service Pack 3 before you install networking, you may get an error telling you that the Server service failed due to lack of memory. To correct the problem, reinstall Service Pack 3. To avoid the problem, install all the network components before you install Service Pack 3.

GETTING RID OF UNNECESSARY DUAL BOOT
Let's say you have a computer that has been running Windows NT Workstation 4.0 and Windows 95. You decide that you no longer need Windows NT Workstation 4.0 on that particular computer, so you trash it. The problem is, your computer still tries to do the dual boot thing.
To get rid of the dual boot menu on startup, boot the computer using your Windows 95 Startup disk. After the computer starts type sys c: at the A: prompt. When the command finishes its work, you'll get a System Transferred message. Remove the Startup disk and press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to restart the computer. This time, it will boot directly into Windows 95.

NEW SETUP DISKS
Have three blank, formatted floppy disks ready. Put your installation CD into the CD-ROM drive. Now, click Start, Run. Assuming your CD-ROM drive is D, type in d:\i386\winnt32 /ox and press Enter. Simply follow the dialog boxes to create the setup disks.

SECURITY FIRST
If you're in charge of a large number of computers, you might want to increase the system security. One way to make the system more secure is to keep users from accessing Control Panel and Printers.
You can hide Control Panel and Printers with a simple Registry change. To make this easier, we've written a pair of REG files--one to turn off the Control Panel and Printers, and one to turn them back on.
Be careful when running any REG file--a REG file modifies the Registry and, we can't guarantee that they will work flawlessly on all installations.

Choose File, Save As and name the file On.reg.
To turn off Control Panel and Printers access, double-click Off.reg and restart the computer. To turn access on, double-click On.reg and restart.

SHORTCUT ARROWS
Some people like the little arrow on shortcut icons so they know the icon represents a shortcut. Other people would rather do without the arrow. If you belong to the latter group, here's a Registry edit that will remove those shortcut arrows. As usual, we need to warn you that you embark on Registry edits at your own risk. Be careful.
Click Start, Run. Type regedit and click OK (or press Enter). When RegEdit opens, navigate to KEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Lnkfile. In the right pane, click the IsShortcut icon to select it and then press Delete. To see the changes, you need to log off and back on (or restart the computer).

EXPANDING SUBFOLDERS
Let's say you're working in Windows NT Explorer and you'd like to expand all the subfolders. Don't waste time clicking each plus sign; just click a folder to select it and then press the asterisk (*) key on the numerical keypad. This will expand all the folders.
Note: The asterisk key over the 8 will not work--you need to use the one in the number pad.

RAS DELAY
There doesn't appear to be a simple way to change the way that RAS answers the line. However, you can do this with a Registry edit. As usual, be very careful when working with RegEdit.
Click Start, Run, type regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class. Now, expand Class and look for the Modem entry (it's usually the fourth one down). The first modem (if you have more than one) will be 0000. Expand this and then click Monitor. In the right pane you should see 1 ATSO=o[cr]
Double-click this icon and change the 0 to a 2 (or the number of rings you want to use). Click OK and then close RegEdit (choose Registry, Exit). Restart the computer (or log off and log back on). You can start RAS now, and it will answer on the number of rings you selected.

DIAL UP NETWORKING
If you'd rather not fool with all the problems of the Dial-up Networking, here's a batch file that you can use to dial your ISP, run Microsoft Internet Explorer (or some other browser), and then hang up when you're finished. To generate the batch file, run NotePad and enter the code shown here:
c:\Winnt\system32\RasPhone -d Your ISP server as listed in Dial-Up. 'dial"c:\Program Files\Plus!\Microsoft Internet\IEXPLORE.EXE" ' run IEc:\winnt\system32\rasdial Your ISP server as listed in Dial-Up /DISCONNECT ' hang up
Choose File, Save As. Name the file something like Dial.bat (Dial isn't important, but the BAT extension is) and save it in a convenient folder.
You can place a shortcut to Dial.bat on the desktop. Once the shortcut is in place, right-click the icon and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Shortcut tab. Now, click the arrow at the right side of the Run list box and choose Minimized. This will prevent the MS-DOS window from showing up when you run the file.
The path names shown in the batch file may not be the same as yours. Use Windows NT Explorer to locate the necessary file locations and substitute your path for the ones shown.

BOOT FLOPPY
The reason for having a boot floppy is that there are times when Windows NT won't start, and you know why it won't start. For example, suppose Ntdetect.com is bad. And you know that's what is wrong because when you try to boot the computer, you get an error message telling you that the system can't find, or load, Ntdetect.
When something like this happens, you can go through the usual procedures to restore the system. However, since you already know what's wrong, you could get your system back up again more quickly if you use a boot floppy.
Make your boot floppy before any files go bad--there's no point in trying to make a boot floppy with potentially bad files. To create your boot floppy, insert a blank formatted floppy disk into Drive A. Now open Windows NT Explorer and click the root folder (usually C:\). Copy the following files to the floppy disk: Boot.ini Ntdetect.com Bootsect.dos (for dual startup installations) NTLDR Ntbootdd.sys (if it's in the root folder, copy it) Using the boot floppy, you can boot into your damaged system and make the appropriate repairs.

Rather than write a separate batch file to delete files to a folder for potential recovery, you can use Doskey to alias the Del command and make a new Delete command: doskeydoskey DEL=move $* C:\Trashdoskey DELETE=DEL $*
Using this macro, you don't have to remember to use a new command--just use Del. When you are sure you want to delete a file permanently, use Delete.
To create and use the macro, run Notepad and type in the code as shown above. Name the file Del.bat and save it in your Startup folder. When you start, the Doskey macro will be in place for use.

FUNCTION KEYS
You can assign function keys to programs. However, you need to be aware that many of these keys are already assigned. If you reassign them, you'll lose the original function. This caveat applies to program key assignments as well.
As an example, F1 is assigned to Help. When you press F1, the Help window will open. This will work in almost all Windows NT 4.0 programs. If you assign F1 to open a program, you'll lose the ability to press F1 in any program when you want to open Help.
Let's suppose that you don't care about using F1 to open Help and that you'd like to reassign it to open Microsoft Word. To do this, place a shortcut to Word on your desktop. Now, right-click the shortcut's icon and choose Properties from the menu. In the Properties dialog box, click the Shortcut tab. Next, click once in the Shortcut Key entry box. Press F1 to assign the key to Word. Click OK to close the dialog box. When you press F1 now, Word will open.
You can assign any key combination that isn't already in use, or you can assign one that is in use as long as you don't need to use the keys for the original purpose. If you don't want to use F1 to open Word, you could try Ctrl-Alt-W.

When you assign hotkeys to open programs, you need to place those shortcuts on the desktop or in the correct folders. Otherwise the keystrokes won't work.
Let's suppose that you have a desktop folder that contains shortcuts for Microsoft Office applications. Assigning keystrokes to open these programs will fail. The shortcuts themselves need to be on the desktop--not in a folder on the desktop.
What if you don't want all those program icons on the desktop? In this case, you can place those shortcuts on the Start menu. Try this: Run Windows NT Explorer and navigate to the Startup folder. You'll find it under \Winnt\Profiles\UserName (substitute your current username here)
Next, create the shortcuts to which you want to assign hotkeys in the Start menu. Right-click one of the icons and choose Properties. Click the Shortcut tab and then single-click in the Shortcut Key entry box. Make your key assignment and click OK. Repeat for each program you want to open with keystrokes.

DIR COMMAND
If you go to the command prompt and type set dircmd=/w/o/p then press Enter, every time thereafter that you type dir the /w/o/p switches will be automatically applied. Of course, if you want only the /p switch, you can type set dircmd=/p and press Enter.
You can undo the /w or /o or /p on each instance by simply typing dir /-switch whatever For example, if you wanted to do a directory with only the /w switch, you could enter dir /-p/-o
Note that when you exit the Command prompt window, the Dircmd setting returns to its default settings.

DEFAULT START
When you open Windows NT Explorer, it defaults to C:\WINNT\Profiles\Administrator\Start Menu. IF you are on a network, you may prefer that it open to say s:\data, if that is where you spend most of your time.
For the sake of this discussion, let's assume that you have an Explorer shortcut on your desktop. Right-click the Explorer icon and choose Properties. When the dialog box opens, click the Shortcut tab. Click in the Target entry box and add /e to the end of the line. Your line will now look something like our example line: %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /e
Next, click in the Start In entry box and type in the path to your networked drive. For example, the path could be \\NetComputer\Data Click OK to close the dialog box and record your changes. When you double-click the Explorer icon, Explorer will open to the new drive assignment. If the network drive is unavailable, Explorer will open to the desktop.

BOOT TIMEOUT
If when booting, Windows NT stops and asks which display mode to use (either Windows NT Workstation, version 4.00 or Windows NT Workstation, version 4.00 [VGA-mode]) and automatic timeout is not functioning, there is a place to make a change so that the system will boot on the default condition after a time period.
To set the timeout, click Start, Settings, Control Panel. When Control Panel opens, double-click the System icon. When System Properties opens, click the Startup/Shutdown tab. In Startup/Shutdown, you see a spin box labelled "Show List For xx Seconds." Set the value in the spin box to the number of seconds you want NT to wait before booting to the default condition.
Make sure the current default condition is set to what you want. You'll see the default boot listed in the Startup list box just above the spin box. If the condition is not what you want for the default, click the arrow at the right side of the list box and select your startup condition from the list.
After you make your selections, click OK to close the System Properties dialog box and save your changes. You can also close Control Panel at this time.

REGISTRY BACKUP
To back up the Registry, go to the Run command, type rdisk /s and press Enter (if you use the /s- switch with Rdisk, NT 4.0 skips the floppy disk creation). This will launch the Repair Disk utility and prompt you for the number of floppies required to back up the registry files. This is also called the Emergency Repair Disk.
First Repair Disk updates the configuration files (these are found in the System_Root\Repair directory) and then requests a floppy. Repair Disk then formats the floppy and copies the files from the \Repair directory to the disk(s) in a compressed format. The down side to this is that if you ever have to do a repair, the information on the disk(s) is only as current as the last time you ran the rdisk utility. So, if you're going to edit the Registry, this is a good time to run rdisk. Once you've run the rdisk utility, you can do a Repair procedure to replace the desired registry key(s).
If you don't want to go through the Repair Disk utility, you can just copy the contents of the \Repair directory to floppy or zip disk. These files are already compressed.
Note: When you make an Emergency Repair Disk, the data first gets stored on the hard disk at \Winnt\Repair. After the system formats the floppy disk in Drive A, the data gets copied over to the floppy disk. So if you look in \Winnt\Repair, you'll find your latest repair information even if you created a floppy using Rdisk.

NETWORK NEIGHBORHOOD
If you don't want the Network Neighborhood icon on your desktop, here's a REG file that will make it disappear.
As usual, we must warn you that REG files can damage your Registry. We can't guarantee that any REG file will do what you expect on your system. With this disclaimer out of the way, here's the REG file. To create it, run Notepad and type in the following exactly as shown.
(Note: The line numbers are there to show you what goes on a single line--do not type them in --if you enter them, your REG file will not work. Also there should be a blank line between REGEDIT4 and the first line of code.)

Choose File, Save As and name the file NetOn.reg. Save the file and then double-click its icon to merge it with the Registry. Restart the computer; the Network Neighborhood icon will appear on your desktop, ready for action.

THE PRINTS OF DOS
If you often work at the Command Prompt, and sometimes need to print a text file, there is a way to print the file without leaving the Command Prompt.
There are actually several ways to print a text file while working at the Command Prompt. Assuming the file you want to print is in your current folder, you can type print TextFile.txt and press Enter. In this example, TextFile is the name of the file you want to print. You must use the extension. If you'd like to edit the file before you print it, type edit TextFile.txt and press Enter. This opens MS-DOS Edit. Edit the file and then press Alt, F, P to print it. If you'd prefer to use Notepad, you can do this from the Command Prompt as well. Just type Notepad TextFile.txt and press Enter. Notepad opens with TextFile.txt loaded. You can even use Notepad to print without going through the edit stage. Type Notepad /p TextFile.txt and press Enter. Notepad will open with the file loaded and print the file with no further input from you.

SAVING CHKDISK RESULTS
Let's suppose you'd like to save CHKDSK files using the current date. To save the CHKDSK results to a text file, you can enter (at the Command Prompt) chkdsk > 8_1_98.txt and press Enter. You won't see anything happening while CHKDSK works, since all the data is going into your new file. To view the file, type Notepad 8_1_98.txt and press Enter. If you prefer a more readable file name, you can use quotes. For example, chkdsk > "August 1, 1998.txt" will work just fine. When you view the file with Notepad, you'll need to use quotes there too. Type Notepad "August 1, 1998.txt" and press Enter.

DESKTOP SHORTCUT
With the Windows keyboard, all you have to do to get to the desktop is press the Windows key-M. If you don't have a Windows keyboard, you can press Ctrl-Esc and then press Alt-M.

A QUICKER CONNECTION
You may have a number of computers tied together in a small office and have drive icons for the other computers on your desktop. The only problem with this is that it seems to take forever for the network to connect when you boot the computer.
When you place remote drive icons on your desktop, NT 4.0 will take a few moments to make sure you're reconnected every time you start the computer. However, you can turn off this option.
Double-click the Network Neighborhood icon to open it. Locate the drive you want to place on your desktop. Right-click the icon and choose Map Network Drive. To stop the automatic reconnects, deselect the check box labelled "Reconnect at logon." Click OK to record your selection.
Now you can open My Computer and place a shortcut to the new drive on your desktop. When you restart the computer, Windows NT Workstation 4.0 will not attempt to connect the remote computer. However, when you double-click the remote drive icon, you'll get connected. The first time you attempt to open the remote drive, you may notice a slight delay, but it will connect rather quickly.

DISABLE THE SAVE PASSWORD OPTION
The Dial-Up Networking (DUN) program allows you to save a user name and password for each of your dial-up connections. While this is convenient, it's very insecure, especially when most dial-up networking is done on laptops, which are easily stolen. To prevent users from saving passwords, launch RegEdit and add the REG_DWORD value DisableSavePassword value to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RasMan\Parameters key and set it to 1. Once this is done, DUN will no longer display the Save Password checkbox and it will forget all the passwords it had been told to remember. Remember to back up your Registry before making any manual changes to it.

CONTROL PANEL
Want to place Control Panel on the Start menu?
Right-click Start and choose Open. Right-click the Start Menu window, and then select New, Folder. When the new folder appears, give it the following name (you must type the name exactly as shown here--we suggest that you copy and paste the text): Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}
Now click Start. Control Panel will be the first item (at the top of the list). When you move your mouse over the new Control Panel folder, a cascading menu of all your system's Control Panels will appear.

NT LOGON LOGO
Want to change the Windows NT logo that usually appears as the default screen when you first log on?
You can do this very easily. All you have to do is replace either Winnt.bmp or Winnt256.bmp with your own BMP file. You'll find both files in the \Winnt folder. We suggest that you rename the current file rather than writing over it. Open Windows NT Explorer and locate \Winnt. Now find Winnt256.bmp and rename it to LogoFile.bmp. Rename your replacement file Winnt256.bmp. The next time you start the computer, the new logo will appear.
Winnt256.bmp is the 256-color version of the logo. This is the one most people will use. However, if you don't use a 256-color (or greater) video system, rename the file currently named Winnt.bmp and then name your replacement Winnt.bmp.

DISABLING AUTORUN
Does it drive you crazy that your NT machine slows to a crawl each time you place a new CD in your CD-ROM drive? Almost every CD has a program that will automatically run, sometimes with sound and animation, each time it is placed in the drive. By default, NT will run these programs, but you can disable the feature if you find it more annoying than useful.
To do this, log in as a user with administrator rights and launch Regedit by selecting Start/Run and typing in regedit. Expand the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key and drill down until you find the System\CurrentControlSet\Services. Click on the CD-ROM subkey and then double-click on the Autorun entry in the right-hand panel of Regedit to launch the Edit DWORD Value dialog box. Set the Value Data: text box to 0. Close the dialog box by clicking OK and then close the Regedit program. The next time you restart your system, Autorun will be disabled.

STARTUP - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
Let’s say you use a laptop PC, so you start up connected to a LAN at the office with a company domain selected. You start up stand-alone with a private domain selected. Maybe you sometimes forgot which start-up was common, which was connected to the company domain, which was connected to your private profile, and which was connected to All Users?
To make life easier, rename the start-up folder to anything you want as long as the first eight characters of the name are Startup and a space. For example, name the common start-up Startup - Common. Rename the company domain start-up to Startup - Company.
Now, when I need to add something to a start-up folder, you know at a glance which folder to use.

 COMMAND PROMPT TWO
You can stack commands at the command prompt. To see how this works, open a command prompt window, type chkdsk & mem and press Enter. This runs CHKDSK and then, when CHKDSK finishes, runs MEM.

KEEPING YOUR LITTLE BLACK BOOK UP-TO-DATE
We recently published a Microsoft Mail tip on how to add a sender's e-mail address to the Address Book. A number of readers have asked about doing the same with Outlook Express. So, let's take a look.
Open Outlook Express and locate a message. Open the message (double-click its icon) and then right-click the sender's name and choose Add to Address Book. You'll have the address available for use at any time

NEW HARD DISK.
Q: I recently purchased a new hard disk (5.1GB) to add to an existing computer that currently runs Windows 95. I'd like to upgrade to Windows 98 and add Windows NT Workstation 4.0 using the new hard disk. Is this practical?
The answer is yes and no. If your Windows 95 installation uses the 16-bit FAT, you can upgrade to Windows 98 without changing the FAT. In this case, you could easily install Windows NT Workstation 4.0 on a partition of the new hard disk.
Here's the approach to take: Install the new hard disk and use FDISK to partition it. Since the 16-bit FAT won't handle the large disk size, you'll need to use three partitions (2GB, 2GB, and 1.1GB). Format the new partitions and then upgrade your Windows 95 to Windows 98. Do not convert any of the hard disks to the 32-bit FAT.
With Windows 98 installed, place the Windows NT Workstation 4.0 disc into the CD-ROM drive and double-click its icon to open it. Click Install Windows NT to continue. Now, follow the Windows NT Workstation 4.0 instructions to complete the installation. When the installation is complete, you'll be able to dual-boot between the two systems.
If you decide to install Windows NT Workstation 4.0 on an NTFS partition, note that the partition will not be visible in Windows 98.

LOCATING ICONS - NT Workstation 4.0
Let's say that you right-click a shortcut's icon and choose Properties, click the Shortcut tab, and click Change Icon. If you click the Browse button to search for more icon files, it's hard to know which files contain icons. Here's a REG file that will make your task easier. As usual, we can't guarantee that any Registry edit will work on your system, so proceed with caution.
To generate the REG file, run Notepad and type in the following text as shown here, simply pressing Enter in place of "Blank line goes here." Note that lines 2 and 5 are blank lines. These empty lines are necessary for the REG file to work properly.

Now choose File, Save As and select a folder for your new REG file. Name the file DLL.REG and save it.
To use the REG file, double-click its icon. It will merge its data with the existing REG data and replace the current contents of the default icon with %1.
After you run DLL.REG, restart the computer and run Windows NT Explorer. Now that you've modified the Registry, all DLL files that do not contain icons will use the default icon. DLL files that display icons other than the default contain icons you may want to use.

CHANGE THE COMMAND PROMPT WINDOW -NT Workstation 4.0
Need more lines in that Command Prompt window? You can change the window by typing in a Mode command. For example, if you need 50 lines in the window (as an example), type mode con lines=50 and press Enter. You'll now have 50 lines available for use. If you'd like to change the window width, type (for example) mode con cols=90 and press Enter.
When you close the window, the mode setting reverts to the default, so when you open the Command Prompt window again, it will use the default values.
To modify the default settings, right-click the Command Prompt shortcut and choose Properties. Click the Layout tab and enter a new size into the Window Size Height and Width spin boxes. Click OK to close the dialog box and record your changes.

TURN ON NUMLOCK - NT Workstation 4.0
Is there a way to turn on Numlock automatically?
Some people seem to have problems getting Numlock to turn on when NT 4.0 starts, and others don't have the problem. Some readers have said that SP 3 cures the problem and others say it doesn't. Our experience is that Numlock won't turn on automatically in Windows NT Workstation 4.0 unless we make some changes to the Registry.
Since so many readers experience the Numlock problem, we decided to create a REG file to make the Registry changes. Although we've tested the REG file here, we can't guarantee that it will work as expected on your system. If you decide to try the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following exactly as shown, simply pressing Enter in place of the text "Blank line goes here":

Choose File, Save As, and choose a folder for your new REG file. Name the file Num.reg and save it. Next, double-click the Num.reg icon to merge the file with the Registry. After you run Num.reg, turn on Numlock and restart the computer. When Windows NT Workstation 4.0 starts again, Numlock will be on.

POSTOFFICE.
Q: I'd like to set up a Microsoft Mail postoffice on my computer, which runs Windows NT 4.0 Workstation on an NTFS disk. The problem is that all the other computers on the network are running Windows 95. I access the other computers, but none of them needs to access mine. Since Windows 95 can't use the NTFS disk, what can I do to set up a postoffice?
Actually, the network will have no trouble with the NTFS partition. Although Windows 95 installed as an alternative operating system on the same computer won't read the NTFS partition, computers on the network can see the files on the partition with no problem at all. Go ahead and install that postoffice on your computer.
Now let's look at how to install a Microsoft Mail system on your Windows NT Workstation 4.0 computer.
Click Start, Settings, Control Panel. In Control Panel, you'll see an icon labeled Microsoft Mail Postoffice. If you do not, double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon. When the dialog box opens, click the Windows NT Setup tab and select Windows Messaging. Click OK to install. After you restart the computer, the Microsoft Mail Postoffice icon will appear in Control Panel.
Now double-click the Postoffice icon to open a wizard that can guide you through installation. On the first page of the wizard, select the radio button labeled "Create a new Workgroup Postoffice" and click Next.
On the next screen, you need to decide where you want to place your postoffice. Click Browse and select the folder you want to use. Click Next to continue. The next page will ask for confirmation of your selected location. Click Next to continue or Back if you want to change the location.
Next, you'll be asked to enter your Account data. Enter the name and so on, and click OK when you're finished. A dialog box will open, warning you that you must share the postoffice folder if you want others to have access. Click OK to close the dialog box.
Run Windows NT Explorer now and locate the postoffice folder. Right-click its icon and select Sharing. When the Properties dialog box opens, select Shared As and enter the name you'd like to use, then click OK.
Now your postoffice should be accessible from the other computers on your network.

OPEN IT ON DRIVE D - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
Q: Where I work, the C drive contains Win NT and our D drive contains other programs. Both drives are formatted using NTFS. I would like the contents of drive D to appear when I open Windows NT Explorer.
Let's say you open Explorer using the Start menu. Right-click Start and choose Open. When the Start menu window opens, double-click the Programs icon. You should now see the Windows NT Explorer icon. Right-click it and choose Properties. Click the Shortcut tab and then click in the entry box labelled Target. The box will display something similar to %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe
Click again in the box to make sure the current line is not selected. Now, move to the end of the line, type a space, and add /e Your Target line should now read %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /e
Next, click in the Start In entry box and delete the current contents. Now, type in the new drive letter. For example, if you want Explorer to start in drive D, type in d:\ and click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes.

QUICK DISK SPACE INFO
If you need to know how much space a group of folders or files takes up on your hard drive, NT provides a quick way to get that info. In Explorer, simply hold down the Ctrl key as you select the files or folders in question, and then right-click any of the highlighted objects. When you do, NT displays the total size of all the selected objects.

USING RDISK - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
You can create an Emergency Repair Disk by choosing Start, Run, typing in rdisk /s and pressing Enter. Windows NT Workstation 4.0 will first copy the information to the hard disk and then prompt you to insert a floppy disk. You can skip the floppy disk creation if you wish. All you have to do is add a minus sign after /s. Choose Start, Run. Type in rdisk /s- and press Enter. Windows NT Workstation 4.0 will now write the new emergency information to the hard disk, but will not prompt for a floppy disk. This technique is especially useful because you can use it in an AT schedule without having to be present to put a floppy into drive A.

COPY AND PASTE - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
There are two ways to handle copy and paste in the Command Prompt window. The default method is to choose Command Box, Edit, Mark. Then you use the shift-arrow key to select the portion of the window you want to copy. After you make the selection, press Enter to copy it to the Clipboard.
If you select QuickEdit mode, you can use the mouse to select the portion of the window you want to copy, then simply press Enter to send it to the Clipboard. To select QuickEdit mode, choose Start, Settings, Control Panel, and double-click the Console icon. When the Console Windows Properties dialog box opens, click the Options tab. Select the check box labelled QuickEdit Mode and then click OK to record your selection and close the dialog box.

ASSIGN KEYSTROKE COMBO TO A SHORTCUT
You can assign a keystroke combination to invoke any Windows NT shortcut. Shortcut keys automatically include Ctrl + Alt in combination with the key you choose. Right-click the shortcut's icon and click Properties. Choose the Shortcut tab and click in the Shortcut Key edit window. Press the key you want to assign to the shortcut. For example, pressing Q assigns Ctrl + Alt + Q to the shortcut. You cannot assign ESC, ENTER, SPACEBAR, BACKSPACE, PRINTSCREEN, and TAB keys. You can include the Shift key in the combination.
Note: No other program can use this key combination. If the shortcut key conflicts with an access key in an application, the access key will no longer function.

NOTEBOOK SPIN DOWN AFTER SP4
The Event Log service in Service Pack 4 (SP4) writes a timestamp on the hard disk every 5 minutes. The Event Log uses the timestamp to estimate when Windows NT performs an abnormal shutdown or crashes. If you set your notebook disk to spin down after 5 minutes, the timestamp activity interferes with the spin down. According to Microsoft's Support Online article Q194749 (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q194/7/49.asp?FR=0), the timestamp is for NT servers, but in SP4 the timestamp is also for NT workstation. Perform the Registry edit below to disable this activity on your NT workstation. You must add a new key to the Registry (Reliability) and then add the TimeStampInterval value to this key.
Path:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion Add a new key:Reliability: REG_DWORD:
Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Reliability Add a new value: TimeStampInterval: REG_DWORD: 0.
Note: You must reboot your system to activate the change.

QUICK CLOSE - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
There are several ways to close all open windows, depending on what you're doing. Let's say you double-click My Computer to open it. Now double-click the drive C icon to open it. Then you double-click one of the folders in drive C to open it.
Now hold down Shift and click the last window's close box. All the windows you just opened will close. This includes My Computer. Any other open windows that are not related to My Computer will not close.
You can also right-click the taskbar and choose Minimize All Windows. This doesn't close them, but it does get them off your desktop and out of the way.
If you use a keyboard that includes the Windows key, you can press Windows-M to minimise all the open windows. Just as with the taskbar, this doesn't close any windows--it just minimises them.

CLICK HERE - Windows NT Workstation 4.0.
Are you tired of that start banner with the little arrow--the one that says Click Here to Begin? If so, here's a REG file that will dispense with that start banner.
Be careful when you run REG files--we don't guarantee that the file will do what you expect, and we can't guarantee that the REG file won't cause system problems.
To write the REG file, run Notepad and type in the following exactly as shown, with blank lines where indicated.

PAGEFILE SIZE.
Here's an easy method you can use to monitor the performance of your pagefile, ensuring that it's set to the optimum setting. First, you'll need to record the setting as a baseline. To do so, open the Control Panel, then open the System icon. Next, choose the Performance tab, then click Change under Virtual Memory. When you do so, NT displays the Virtual Memory dialog box. Record the amount of initial memory assigned on your system. Click OK until you are out of the Control Panel, then go about your work. To track the performance of the pagefile setting, all you need to do each day is open Windows NT Explorer and click once on PAGEFILE.SYS and record the size. If the file size is consistently more than the initial setting, it's an indication that you've set the initial size too low. To improve performance, you can adjust the initial size setting upward, making your pagefile more efficient.

NEW SETUP FLOPPIES - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
You can make a new set of installation floppies from the NT CD. Make sure you have three formatted, blank floppy disks available. Now, insert the installation CD into the CD-ROM drive and then click Start, Run, and type d:\i386\winnt32 /ox then press Enter. (Note: D represents the drive letter of the CD-ROM--if yours is something other than D, enter the correct drive letter here). Follow the instructions to create a new set of disks.
If you get in a bind, you can create the disks on a non-NT 4 computer. Let's say you have access to a computer that runs Windows 95. Insert the NT 4 installation disc into the CD-ROM drive and click Start, Run. Type d:\i386\winnt /ox and press Enter. Follow the instructions to create the three disks.

BOOT FROM FLOPPY. - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
You can't make a Windows NT Workstation 4.0 boot disk in the same way that you'd make an MS-DOS or Windows 95 boot disk (the Windows 95 boot disk boots to the Windows 95 version of MS-DOS). Windows NT Workstation 4.0 doesn't run on top of MS-DOS as Windows 95 does. NT is a much more complex operating system, and you can't get by with a single boot disk.
That said, it IS possible to make a boot disk to help with some of the more common problems you encounter with Windows NT Workstation 4.0 at start-up. Suppose, for example, that you use a dual boot system. Let's say your NTLDR file is damaged. This will prevent a normal boot.
You can create a disk that will at least get you through the start-up so you can choose NT or Windows. To do this, format a floppy disk. Now, run Windows NT Explorer and copy the following files to the floppy disk:

If you have NTBOOTDD.SYS in your boot folder, copy it to the floppy as well.
When you have a problem starting your system, insert the new boot floppy and restart. The boot disk will allow you access when the files in the boot folder (usually drive C) are damaged. It is not a true boot disk, since there are no operating system files on it.

VIEWING VARIABLES - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
There are times when you need to see what environment variables are currently in use. For example, if you unsuccessfully attempt to run a program from the Command Prompt, the program may not be in the path. In this case, all you have to do is type set and press Enter. Windows NT Workstation 4.0 will display all the environment variables. If the list is too long to fit in one screen, type set|more and press Enter. The More command will cause the display to pause at the end of each page of information. To continue to another page, press Space.
If you'd like to check the system variables from the Windows NT Workstation 4.0 user interface, click Start, Settings, Control Panel. When the Control Panel opens, double-click the System icon. When the System Properties dialog box opens, click the Environment tab. After you finish viewing the variables, click OK to close the dialog box.

SPEED UP THE TASKBAR.
In Windows NT 4.0, the user interface has been enhanced with the taskbar. If you have a small screen, you can configure the taskbar to disappear when you're not on it and re-appear when you slide your mouse to the bottom of the screen. Depending on the speed of your computer, it may take too long for the taskbar to appear. You can speed up this appearance, as well as the appearance of other taskbar menus by adding a REG_SZ value named HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Desktop\MenuShowDelay. This value expresses the number of milliseconds the operating system will pause before displaying the taskbar. In other words, if you want the taskbar to wait 1 second before appearing, you would set the value to 1000. Remember to backup your Registry before making any manual changes. After you are satisfied that your Registry changes have done what you wanted them to, update your Emergency Repair disk.

CREATING LONG FOLDER NAMES.
If you try to create a folder from the NT command prompt and try to name it using multiple words, you might be surprised at the results! For example, if you type the following line at your NT command prompt MD MY NT TIPS FOLDER then you'll get folders named as follows: c:\MY c:\NT c:\TIPS c:\FOLDER
To avoid this multiple folder creation, you can simply add quotes around your folder name. For example, if you type md "MY NT TIPS FOLDER" NT will dutifully create a folder named MY NT TIPS FOLDER.

A QUICK ROUTE TO THE MOUSE - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
Run Windows NT Explorer and navigate to \Winnt\system32. Locate Main.cpl and use the right mouse button to drag its icon to the desktop. Release the mouse button and choose Create Shortcut(s) Here. All you have to do now is double-click your new shortcut to open the mouse panel.

MENU RESPONSE TIME - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
You can reduce the menu response time with a Registry edit. If you choose to do this, be careful--if you damage the Registry, your system may not run properly.
If you decide to continue, click Start, Run, type regedit and press Enter. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop. Locate MenuShowDelay and double-click its icon. When the Edit String dialog box opens, enter 100 (the default is 400) and click OK. Close RegEdit (choose Registry, Exit) and restart the computer. You'll find that the menu response is much faster than before.

HIDE DRIVE C - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
You can hide disk drives from the desktop and Windows NT Explorer with a simple Registry edit. Be careful with this because we can't guarantee that all will run as you expect, and you can damage your system with an incorrect Registry Edit.
To hide drive C, click Start, Run, then type regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer Right-click in the right pane and choose New, DWORD Value. Name the new key NoDrives and then press Enter twice (once to accept the name and once to open the Edit DWORD Value dialog box.
In the dialog box, select the radio button labelled Decimal. Now, enter 4 and click OK. Choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit and restart the computer. Upon restarting, drive C will no longer appear in Explorer or in My Computer.
This isn't absolute protection--you can still access drive C if you click Start, Run, type c:\ and press Enter. However, not all your users will know this, so you'll have some degree of protection.
If you need to hide some drive other than C, the following is a list of a few drives and their associated numbers.

So if you want to hide drives C, D, and E, set NoDrives to 28 decimal (16 + 8 + 4). To hide only drive A, you'd enter 1.

CHECKDISK.
An important maintenance tip involves disk maintenance. As you know, NT provides Chkdsk, a utility that scans and repairs your NT hard disks. Unfortunately, many people don't use the tool. You should use Chkdsk to schedule regular disk maintenance of all your NT volumes. Be sure to include the /f parameter, allowing Chkdsk to repair any damage it finds. If a volume is in use when you run the utility, NT will ask if you'd like to run Chkdsk the next time you start your system. If you click Yes, NT will run the utility automatically the next time you boot up your system.

SOUND FILES.
There is a wealth of cool sound files available on the Internet these days. As you find and download these files, store them in the \Winnt\Media folder. NT looks for its sound files in this directory. Then, when you access the Sounds menu in the Control Panel applet, NT will list your new sounds and allow you to assign them to events as you wish.

LOGON MESSAGE - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
To display a message one time only (when the user logs on for the first time), use the RunOnce key in the Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Registry. Since you'd like to apply this to several computers at one time, let's look at how you can write a REG file to do the job for you. As usual, we must warn you that we can't guarantee a REG file will do what you want. We also can't guarantee system damage won't occur.
To write the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following exactly as shown, except that you should enter a blank line where it says "Blank line goes here."

REGEDIT4
Blank line goes here
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce]
"Welcome"="c:\\welcome.cmd"
Blank line goes here

Choose File, Save As and locate a folder for your new file. Name the file Welcome.reg and click Save.
Now you need to generate a message file. Run Notepad again and type in the following.

@echo off
echo Your message goes here
pause
Exit

You can put Welcome.cmd and Welcome.reg onto a floppy disk. Put the disk into drive A of a computer that you're ready to turn over to a user and copy Welcome.cmd to c:\ (assuming C is the drive that contains Winnt). Double-click Welcome.reg to modify the Registry. Remove the floppy and let the user take over.
The welcome message will run only the first time someone logs onto the system. Windows NT Workstation 4.0 will then remove the new entry from the Registry, and the Welcome file won't run again.

COPYING THE I386 DIRECTORY'S HIDDEN FILES
To save you the trouble of hunting for the NT Installation files every time you need to install a new service, you can create a shared I386 directory that holds these files. The trick is to remember to copy the hidden files too, since NT Explorer doesn't display files that have .sys, .dll, and .vxd extensions and Explorer doesn't copy files that it doesn't display. Before you use Explorer to copy the I386 directory, choose Options from Explorer's View menu, click the View tab in the Options dialog box, and select the Show All Files option. Explorer will then copy all hidden files when you copy the I386 files to your server.

FORCING DOS WINDOW PLACEMENT
When you launch a DOS application on your NT system, you aren't always sure where it will open. Actually, you can force the window to open in a specific position. To do so, launch Control Panel and double-click on Console. When the dialog box opens, click on Layout and deselect the Let System Position Window check box. Now use the spin boxes to set the window's position.

BACKGROUND - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
Q. Is there any way to change the colour of the log-on background to blue?
A. We could show you how to edit the Registry to make the log-on background blue but let's do another REG file instead. Remember, we don't guarantee these REG files will work on your system, so use the file at your own risk.
Run Notepad and enter the following as shown, except that you should insert a blank line where it says "Blank line goes here."

REGEDIT4
Blank line goes here
[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Colors]
"Background"="0 0 255"
Blank line goes here

The key to the colour is the line "Background"="0 0 255". These numbers represent the values of red, green, and blue. To get a fully saturated blue (which, by the way, we find at least as ugly as the original green), enter 0 for red, 0 for green, and 255 (maximum) for blue. To get the most attractive background, you may wish to experiment with these values. To make the change, double-click the Colors.reg icon. This will merge the data with the Registry.

TURN OFF WINDOW ANIMATION.
You may have noticed that when you open a window in NT 4.0, the window appears to fly out of the taskbar. Likewise, when you close a window, it shrinks back into the taskbar. While it may be minimal, this nifty animation does absorb precious processing power. However, you can disable this feature with a simple change to your NT Registry. To make the change, launch the NT Registry editor, then locate the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics Next, double-click on the WindowMetrics folder, then choose Edit, New, String Value. Name your new string MinAnimate. Double-click on the new value and set it to 0 (zero). Exit the Registry editor, then restart your system to make the change take effect.

LOST YOUR CD KEY?
As you know, you need the magic CD KEY number found on your NT CD case to install NT. Unfortunately, your case may disappear, leaving you numberless. Fortunately, there's an easy way to retrieve the number from your valid NT install. You'll find the number in the NT Registry. To view the number, launch REGEDIT, then navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion. The CD KEY consists of digits 6 through 15 under the ProductID entry.

BATCH FILES - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
Q. I wrote a batch file that calls ten MS-DOS programs. The problem is that I often get a stack overflow error. Do you know of a way to run the file without errors?
A. Assuming that you don't have a problem with one of the MS-DOS programs, you could try renaming your batch file's extension to CMD. Also, check Config.nt and make sure that DOS Only isn't specified.

PRESERVING YOUR DESKTOP ICON ARRANGEMENT.
You drag your icons around until they're arranged perfectly on your desktop--a place for everything and everything in its place. Then, NT flakes and closes unexpectedly. When it restarts, everything is back where it was before you rearranged things! Normally, NT saves your desktop icon locations when you shut down the system. Unfortunately, with unexpected shutdowns, NT will revert to the last saved settings. Once you've arranged your icons just as you wish, click on the desktop and press F5. This saves the settings and ensures that things will stay where you put them.

SEARCHING THE REGISTRY.
Having trouble finding specific items in your NT Registry? Join the crowd. While NT's Registry Editor does have search capabilities, they're limited. Fortunately, you can use that old standby editor from Windows 95, Regedit.exe, for performing searches using the Edit/Find menu. However, DO NOT MAKE CHANGES to your NT Registry with Regedit.
Another way to search parts of your Registry is to save the Key or section to a text file. You can then search the contents with any text editor. To do this, highlight the Key you wish to search, then from the Registry menu select Save Subtree As. This feature saves the contents as text in the file and location you specify. You can now search the text to locate the value you seek.

DISABLE SAVE PASSWORD OPTION
The Dial-Up Networking (DUN) program allows you to save a user name and password for each of your dial-up connection. While this is convenient, it's very insecure, especially when most dial-up networking is done using laptops, which are easily stolen. To prevent users from saving passwords, add the REG_DWORD value DisableSavePassword value to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RasMan\Parameters key and set it to 1. Once this is done, DUN will no longer display the Save Password checkbox and it will forget all the passwords it had been told to remember. Remember to backup your Registry before making any manual changes. After you are satisfied that your Registry changes have done what you wanted them to, update your Emergency Repair disk.

WHEN WAS THE LAST LOGON - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
To find out when Windows NT Workstation 4.0 was last started requires that you use the Command Prompt. At the prompt, type net statistics workstation and press Enter. The first line shows the last time the system was started. To see the first line, you may need to type net statistics workstation |more at the prompt. More causes the program's output to pause at the end of the first page.
You can also determine the last log-on using the Event Log. To do this, click Start, Programs, Administrative Tools (Common), Event Viewer. Look for the first occurrence of Source Eventlog and event 6005 at the beginning of the System Log.

ERROR MESSAGE AFTER ADDING A DEVICE.
It's possible that after you add a device or service on your NT system, you may experience a system event indicating insufficient resources, such as an IRPstackSize error. If so, you can resolve the problem by boosting the IRPstackSize value in your NT Registry. To do so, launch Regedt32 and edit the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENT_CONTROL_SET\SERVICES\LanmanServer\Parameters
You'll make the change or add the value IRPstackSize REG_DWORD, setting the value to a couple more than the existing value, usually at least 7. The maximum value is C (12). Save your changes and restart the system to make the changes effective.

CHANGE THE PRINT SPOOL DIRECTORY
By default, Windows NT uses the system disk for all print spooling directories. If you're running out of space or fire off a large number of print jobs, this can soon become a performance bottleneck. You can change the spool directory by adding a new REG_SZ value named HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers\[PrinterName]\SpoolDirectory and setting it to a local path. You should replace [PrinterName] with the name you gave the printer when you created it. Note: You can't use a UNC path for the printer spool. You must use a fully qualified local path that exists before you make the changes. You must stop and restart the Spooler service after making these changes to the Registry.

TURNING OFF PRINTER POP-UP.
NT has a lot of bells and whistles, including some services and features you may not use. One example is the pop-up messages related to printing. Fortunately, you can modify this and other entries on the Print Server by modifying the values related to the following key in your Registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Providers To prevent pop-up messages from appearing upon print job completion, add a value name of NetPopup and set REG_DWORD to 0. You'll need to stop and restart the spooler from Services in the Control Panel or reboot to ensure that the change takes effect.

ELIMINATE RUN COMMAND - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
Many administrators like to remove Run from the Start menu. This can help keep users from running programs such as RegEdit. However, it's only a very minimal security measure, since your users can still locate and run RegEdit using Windows NT Explorer.
Since several administrators have requested an easy way to turn off the Run command, we decided to write a pair of REG files to turn Run off and on.
Remember that a REG file modifies the Registry and that we can't guarantee the REG files shown here will do what you expect on your Windows NT Workstation 4.0 installation.

To turn off the Run menu entry in the Start menu, log on as the user whose system you wish to change. Now, double-click RunOff.reg to merge the new information with the current Registry. The next time you restart the computer, the Run command won't appear in the Start menu. To get the Run command back, double-click RunOn.reg and restart the computer.

KEEP THOSE ATTRIBUTES - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
If you use Xcopy to copy files from a CD-ROM to a hard disk or a floppy, the read-only attributes are stripped. To keep the read-only attributes on the copied files, go to the Command Prompt and type copy (your folder) /k and press Enter. The read-only attribute will now be active on the copied files.

DISABLING CONTROL PANEL APPLETS.
You may not want all users on your NT systems to access certain Control Panel applets. If you want to designate some as off limits, you can disable individual applets for specific users or groups. Here's the trick: Control Panel applets have an extension of .cpl. To disable selected Control Panel applets, remove the NTFS Read permissions from the appropriate CPL file in the %systemroot%\System32 directory for those selected users and groups.
Now, here's a list of applets and the file you'll need to modify:

DISABLING AUTODISCONNECT.
Need a way to disconnect idle LAN sessions after a set number of minutes? Windows NT allows you to set an automatic parameter for ending LAN connections. You can change the setting either from the command line or in the Registry. To make the change in the NT Registry, you'll use REGEDT32 to modify the LAN Autodisconnect parameter on the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
The valid value range is 0 to 4294967295 minutes. Setting this value to 0 does not disable the setting, as you would think. The best you can do in the Registry if you want to disable the value is set it to its highest value.
You can also set the number of minutes at a command prompt using the Net Config Server command. For example, to set the Autodisconnect value to 30 minutes, you would type the following: Net Config Server /autodisconnect:30 The valid value range is -1 to 65535 minutes at the command line. If you set the Autodisconnect option to -1 at the command prompt, Autodisconnect is set to the upper value in the registry.

BATCH FILE; FLOPPY IN DRIVE A? - Windows NT Workstation 4.0.
Let's say you have a program that uses drive A. You run the program and have no problems until the program needs to write to a floppy disk in drive A. Oops--no disk. If you use the following batch file to start your MS-DOS program, you won't have that problem--the batch file will check for a floppy in drive A before calling your MS-DOS program.
To generate the batch file, run Notepad and type in the following exactly as shown.

@echo off
dir a: >nul
if errorlevel=2 goto end
@echo Insert a blank formatted floppy into Drive A
pause
:end
rem Run MS-DOS Program

If there is already a formatted floppy disk in drive A, Detect runs your MS-DOS program without further ado. Note that Detect.bat does nothing to detect how much space is available on a formatted floppy disk. If the disk is nearly full when you start your MS-DOS program, you could run out of disk space. Let's hope that the MS-DOS program acts as expected and detects a disk-full condition for you.

EXPLORE SYSTEM ATTRIBUTE - Windows NT Workstation 4.0.
Q. I recently ran into a situation where I needed to remove the system attribute of a file. I right-clicked the file in Windows NT Explorer and then chose Properties. I found that the System Attribute check box was selected, but greyed out so I couldn't change it. Then I checked some other files and folders I knew had System Attribute checked. I found that I couldn't change any of them.
A. This is normal for Windows NT Explorer (although we suspect it's a bug). If you need to change the system attribute of a file, first open the Command Prompt. Now, to go to the folder that contains the file, type cd\TheFolder and press Enter. Now, type attrib -MyFile.ext -s and press Enter. This will remove the system attribute from the named file.

CHANGING THE DEFAULT SPOOL DIRECTORY.
NT allows you to specify the directory where print jobs spool, letting you place them on the drive and in the location that will best ensure high performance. You can specify a directory for all printers or for specific printers. To change the default printer spool directory for all printers, you'll modify the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers
For the value name DefaultSpoolDirectory, data type REG_SZ, enter the full path to the printer spool directory under String. To change the default printer spool directory for specific printers, you'll modify the value SpoolDirectory, data type REG_SZ, entering the full path to the printer spool directory under String. Make sure the path specified actually exists, otherwise NT uses the default spool directory.

SERVER - COMMON FAVORITES FOLDER.
As network administrator, you may want to create a common Favorites folder on your NT server and give all users access to the more important Internet bookmarks. Your users can view and add to the Favorites list, too. To create a common Favorites folder, first create a folder on the server with appropriate permissions and share it. Then, on each Windows NT Client, edit the following Registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
To make the change, double-click the Favorites value and enter the UNC path to the common Favorites folder you created--for example, \ServerName\CommonFavorites. Now, your users will share a common Favourite listing that you can monitor and control.

MODIFYING THE RIGHT TO DISPLAY USERS IN USER MANAGER.
Microsoft has identified a problem you may experience when you use the User Manager tool on a computer running Windows NT. This problem affects Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.51 and 4.0, Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.51 and 4.0, Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, and Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional. The problem may allow domain users or guest account users to display the list of user accounts and group accounts.
Fortunately, you can use the Listacct.exe tool to resolve this issue. Microsoft states that the problem occurs because all Windows NT users are granted the Domain List Accounts right by default. This right gives users the necessary permissions to display user and group account names. As the domain administrator, you can obtain and use the Listacct.exe tool (available by calling Microsoft Technical Support) to grant or deny this right to list domain user accounts.

MONITORING FILE SYSTEM ACTIVITY.
A great deal of file system activity takes place during the course of a day. For example, applications access many data and system files in order to perform the tasks you request. NT doesn't provide an easy way to monitor what files are accessible and by what application. However, a third-party tool called Filemon does. Filemon is a GUI and device driver combination that monitors and displays all file system activity on a system. Its advanced filtering and search capabilities make it a powerful tool for exploring the way Windows works, seeing how applications use the files and DLLs, and tracking down problems in system or application configurations. Filemon works on NT 3.51, 4.0, 5.0 (Win2K), Windows 95, and Windows 98. For more information on this utility, visit the following Web address: http://www.sysinternals.com/filemon.htm

CONVENIENT SOUND CHANGES - Windows NT Workstation 4.0.
To put the Sounds panel from Control Panel on your desktop? right-click the desktop and choose New, Shortcut. When the Create Shortcut dialog box opens, type %SystemRoot%\System32\Mmsys.cpl sounds into the Command entry box, and then click Next. Now, name the shortcut Sounds and click Finish. To open the Sounds Properties dialog box, all you have to do is double-click the new Sounds shortcut.

LOGON FAIL IF MANDATORY USER PROFILES ARE NOT AVAILABLE.
By default, users of Windows NT Workstation 4.0 can log into the domain with their local profiles if the mandatory user profile is not available. If you do not want them to be able to do this, change the user's profile folder from profile_folder_name (where profile_folder_name equals the name of the user's profile folder which equals the user's NT user name) to profile_folder_name.man (by adding man to the folder name). Then make the same change in the profile path in User Manager for Domains. The user will now not be able to log into the domain unless mandatory profiles are available.

PRINT DIRECTLY TO THE PRINTER. - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
Need to run several old MS-DOS programs in Windows NT Workstation 4.0 and need to do a print screen?
You can make an MS-DOS application print directly to the printer. The only problem is that some printers won't print the data sent to them until you issue a form feed.
However, here's how to use Print Screen directly from an MS-DOS app if your printer will handle it. Locate the shortcut to the program (if there is no shortcut, create one) and right-click it. Choose Properties from the menu and then click the Misc tab. Under Windows Shortcut Keys, deselect the check box labelled Alt, PrtSc and click OK to close the dialog box and save your selection.
Now, when you press PrtSc while you're in the command prompt window, the screen contents go directly to the printer.

NT AUDITS.
NT logging services record any significant events that occur on your system. One of three event logs--System, Security, or Application--documents these events. NT stores the event logs on your local computer. To make it easy for you to analyse the information, NT consolidates event logs from distributed computers into a central database. You can control which events get audited and recorded. Auditing too many events can affect the performance of your system, so you should carefully select which events and which users and/or groups to audit. You control systemwide auditing by choosing User Manager, Policies, then Audit. You control file system access audits by choosing Properties, Security, then Auditing. You control Registry access auditing through Properties, Security, then Auditing in the Registry Editor.

COLOURED DIR’s & EXE’s - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
Is there a way to get NT to display directories and exec files in different colours?"
No, you can't set separate colours for file types. However, there are several ways to set the command prompt colours. To select new default colours for the command prompt window, right-click the Command Prompt icon and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Colors tab. Use the radio buttons labelled Screen Text and Screen Background to select new colours. After you make the colour selection, click OK.
If you're working in the command prompt window and would like to change the colours temporarily, you can use the Color command. The Color command uses the colour combinations shown here.

UNNEEDED TEMPLATES - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
How do you remove document templates from the New menu? This requires a Registry edit, so here are the usual warnings: Be very careful when editing the Registry--an incorrect entry can cause serious problems.
That said, click Start, Run, type in regedit and press Enter (or click OK). Navigate to HKey_Classes_Root. Let's say in your New list you have Word documents, Rich Text Format documents, bitmap files, Zip files, and so forth. Locate the matching extension for each of the file types you want to eliminate. For example, Word uses DOC, Rich Text Format is RTF, bitmap files are BMP, and Zip files are ZIP.
First, locate, say, BMP and double-click the extension folder to expand it. Click ShellNew and press Delete. Repeat for all the extensions you want to eliminate.
After you've deleted all the ShellNew sub folders that apply to your New list, choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit. The changes take effect immediately--you don't need to restart the computer.

FORCE NT TO REBOOT AFTER A CRASH.
If you spend any time administering Windows NT, you're far too familiar with the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) which displays the cause of the crash and gives some information about the state of the system when it crashed. The BSOD will sit on the screen until someone reboots the system, which could be very bad for a system that should be running 24 hours a day, like an Exchange server. You can force NT to automatically reboot after a crash by setting the value of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\CrashControl\AutoReboot to 1. Once you've changed this value, NT will reboot after writing the crash log file.

QUICK START FOR MS-DOS.
If you often need to use the command prompt window, here's a trick you might like to try. Open the command prompt window, then run Windows NT Explorer. Use the mouse to drag an MS-DOS program's icon to the command prompt window, and release the mouse button. This pastes the complete file name into the command window. Now click the window to select it and press Enter to run the program.

RENAME RECYCLE BIN.
You can change the name of the Recycle Bin if you wish--but it requires a Registry edit.
To make it easy to change the Recycle Bin's name to Trash, we wrote a REG file you can use. Note that we can't guarantee this REG file, or any REG file, will do what you expect. Nor can we promise that no damage will result from its use. To create the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following exactly as shown. When you encounter BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter to insert a blank line.

Now choose File, Save As and name the new file Trash.reg. Locate a folder for the file and click Save. To name your Recycle Bin Trash, double-click the Trash.reg file's icon and click OK in the dialog box that appears. When the computer restarts, the Recycle Bin is named Trash. Note that other references are still to the Recycle Bin. When you right-click the Trash icon, you still get the option Empty Recycle Bin.

RUNNING \I386 FROM A HARD DISK.
If you copy the i386 folder from the CD to a hard disk and install from there, NT knows where to find the files. If your system is already installed, a Registry edit can tell Windows NT Workstation 4.0 where to look for files. We suggest you modify the Source Path with RegEdit. As always, be careful when using RegEdit.
Let's suppose for this example that your CD-ROM drive is D. Therefore, your Source path is d:\i386. You copy your i386 folder to c:\i386. Once you've copied the folder from the CD to the hard disk, click Start, Run, type in regedit and click OK (or press Enter). When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion. In the right pane, you'll see that SourcePath is set to d:\i386\ Change the value to c:\i386 and then choose Registry, Exit. When you restart the computer, the new path takes effect.

BLANK LOGIN SCREEN.
By default, Windows NT Workstation 4.0 saves the name of the last user to log on and displays it in the log-in dialog box. If you prefer to boot with a completely blank log-in dialog box, you can write a REG file to clear the last user. When you run a REG file, keep in mind that you could potentially damage your NT installation.

Choose File, Save As and name the file LastOn.reg. Save the file in the folder that contains LastOff.reg. Double-click the LastOn.reg icon to save the last user name for the next log-in.

A BETTER EDITOR?.
If you do much work with batch files in Windows NT Workstation 4.0, you should consider using Edit.com for the job rather than the default editor, Notepad.exe. Why switch editors? For one thing, Edit.com allows you to enter and display the extended character set some batch files use.

If you'd like to make Edit.com your default batch file editor, open My Computer and choose View, Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the File Type tab. Type ms and select MS-DOS Batch File. Next click Edit. When the Edit File Type dialog box opens, move to Actions and click Edit to select it. Now click Edit, replace Notepad.exe with Edit.com, and click OK. Back in the Edit File Type dialog box, click Close to get to the Options dialog box. Click Close again to close the dialog box.
Restart the computer to activate your changes. With this change in place, you can right-click a BAT file and choose Edit to open the file in Edit.com. If you later decide you want Notepad.exe back, just go through the procedure again and replace Edit.com with Notepad.exe.

PRINT RETRY MESSAGE.
The Retry dialog box appear at unwanted times when you're printing This dialog box asks if you want to retry printing, but it will retry anyway if you just wait a few seconds.
To eliminate the Retry dialog box. We decided to do the job with a pair of Registry files that turn the dialog box off and on. As usual, be careful when you use any program that modifies the Registry.
To generate the first file, run Notepad and enter the following as shown here. Where you see the line BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter to enter a blank line.

Name this file PrintOn.reg and save it. Double-click this file's icon to enable the Retry dialog box.
If you decide to turn off the printing dialog box, you'll need to watch more closely for paper jams, paper out, and so forth.

NO LOGOFF.
You can disable the LogOff button with a Registry edit. Remember to be careful when messing with the Registry. Thinking CAREFUL, click Start, Run; type in regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.
Right-click the right pane of the Explorer folder and choose New, DWORD Value. Name the new value NoLogoff and press Enter twice. Set the value to 1 and click OK. Choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit.
Now press Ctrl-Alt-Del, and you'll find the LogOff button grayed out and unusable. This change is effective immediately--you do not need to restart.

PROBLEMS REINSTALLING TCP/IP.
Having trouble when you try to reinstall TCP/IP or add a TCP/IP service? Microsoft has confirmed that you may receive one of the following error messages when you attempt this procedure: "Registry service subkey already exists" or "Unable to remove name space provider."
To correct this problem, you'll need to remove all the components of the TCP/IP service and then ensure that the following registry subkeys are also removed before you reboot the computer:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CCS\Enum\Root\Legacy_DHCP
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CCS\Enum\Root\Legacy_Lmhosts
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CCS\Enum\Root\Legacy_LPDSVC
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CCS\Enum\Root\Legacy_NetBT
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CCS\Enum\Root\Legacy_TCPIP
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CCS\Services\LanManServer\Linkage\Bind
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CCS\Services\LanManWorkstation\Linkage\Bind
As usual, be careful when editing the Registry!

PLUG AND PLAY DEVICES IN NT.
When you install Windows NT 4.0, it does not detect and install Plug and Play devices in your computer. This is due to the fact that Windows NT 4.0 does not support Plug and Play. Fortunately, the driver library on the Windows NT 4.0 CD-ROM includes the PnP ISA Enabler driver, which may allow the detection and installation of Plug and Play devices in Windows NT 4.0. Install the PnP ISA Enabler driver using the following steps.
First, locate the Pnpisa.inf file in the Drvlib\Pnpisa\ folder on the Windows NT 4.0 CD-ROM. Next, right-click the Pnpisa.inf file and click Install in the menu that appears, then restart your computer. After restarting, you may receive a message that Windows NT has detected your Plug and Play devices.

GETTING RID OF SHORTCUT TO.
When you create shortcut icons, NT automatically puts Shortcut To in the icon name. You can make a change in the Registry to prevent this, giving you cleaner descriptions for shortcuts. To make the change, launch the NT Registry Editor and navigate to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
Now, double-click the link value name in the right pane and set this type REG_BINARY entry to Hex 00000000. You'll need to log off and on to make the change effective.

EMERGENCY DISK HELP.
Life insurance and emergency repair disks--two things you hate to deal with, but when you need them they sure are great to have around. When problems arise in Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 that render a system unbootable, you may be able to boot off a DOS floppy disk and access the machine's drives for repair and salvage. ERD Commander is a utility that enables you to boot NT off a floppy disk in order to access and repair a dead NT installation. It's a command-line shell that runs off a set of NT boot disks, giving you full access to nonbootable NT systems with a robust set of familiar command-line file manipulation tools including copy, rename, delete, move, and xcopy. ERD Commander works on NT 4.0 only and is available for x86 and Alpha. For more information on this utility, visit the following Web address: http://www.sysinternals.com/erdcmndr.htm

EDITING A REMOTE COMPUTER'S REGISTRY.
Windows NT allows you to view the configuration of a remote computer's Registry and even make changes to it, as long as you have administrative rights. Remember, always be careful when editing the Registry--we can't guarantee that the effects of Registry edits will be what you expect or that they won't do any harm.

Launch the Registry Editor, then choose the Select Computer option from the Registry menu, displaying the Select Computer dialog box. Select the remote computer whose Registry you want to edit and click OK. The Registry Editor opens the remote computer's Registry, displaying its information. You're now ready to make your changes.

NT BOOT FLOPPY DISKS.
Need to create a set of replacement installation disks for your NT package? NT provides an easy method. Both Winnt.exe and Winnt32.exe allow you to create boot floppy disks for installing Windows NT or for using the emergency repair disk. Use the /O switch to create a set of boot floppy disks you can use to perform either a Winnt.exe or Winnt32.exe installation. These disks are identical to the set a regular Winnt.exe or Winnt32.exe installation creates. Using this switch allows you to create the floppy disks without installing Windows NT. Use the /OX switch to create a set of boot floppy disks to perform a CD-ROM or floppy disk installation. These disks are identical to the disks Windows NT includes in either the CD-ROM or floppy disk format.

ARE PAGE FILES SECURE?.
Can your page files be a security hole? After all, they do hold sensitive data. The answer is yes! NT swaps memory pages to disk when an application needs physical memory. Even though the page is not accessible while the system is running, someone could access it by, for example, booting another OS.
Fortunately, you can create a Registry key that forces the memory manager to clear the page file when the system goes down. To make this happen, use the NT Registry Editor to set the value of the following key to 1:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\MemoryManagement\ClearPageFileAtShutdown
Keep in mind--this will clear the page file only when you bring down the system normally.

ADD A MESSAGE.
Did you know that you can add a custom message to your Windows NT 4.0 start-up? You do so by editing the following key in your NT Registry--but always be careful when editing the Registry; we can't guarantee that the effects of Registry edits will be what you expect or that they won't do any harm:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
To make the change, launch NT Registry Editor and locate the key above. Next look in the right pane for the value LegalNoticeText. If the string exists, double-click its icon and add your text. Click OK and close the Editor. If the string's not already there, you can add it. To do so, click the right pane and choose Edit, New, String Value. Name it LegalNoticeText, add your text, and click OK. Close the Editor and restart the computer to make the change effective.

Similarly, you can add a title to your Legal Notice dialog box. To do so, launch the Registry Editor and locate the following key--but always be careful when editing the Registry; we can't guarantee that the effects of Registry edits will be what you expect or that they won't do any harm: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
In the right pane, locate the value LegalNoticeCaption. Double-click the value and add the text you want to appear in the title bar of the Legal Notice dialog box. If LegalNoticeCaption doesn't appear, click the right pane and choose Edit, New, String Value. Name it LegalNoticeCaption, then add your text and click OK. After you finish, close RegEdit and restart the computer.

PAGING PROBLEMS.
Have you noticed degradation in performance on your NT server or workstation? If so, you should check for excessive paging. You can do this using Performance Monitor, which examines the values of the Paging File's Percent Usage object and the Physical Disks Average Disk Sec/Transfer object. The product of these values is equal to the percentage of disk access time devoted to providing virtual memory for applications. If the product is greater than .1 for an extended period of time, excessive paging is occurring. Unfortunately, increasing the size of your paging file won't alleviate this problem. To reduce the amount of disk access time devoted to paging, you need to add more memory to your system and remove any unnecessary device drivers or system services.

NO SHORTCUT TO … - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
You can eliminate the Shortcut To prefix to shortcut names with a Registry edit. However, let's do a REG file to make things easier. Remember that running REG files still constitutes modifying the Registry. We don't guarantee that a REG file will do exactly what you expect, so run them at your own risk.
To generate the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following exactly as shown here. Where you see BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter to enter a blank line.

Now choose File, Save As and name the file ShortOff.reg. Locate a folder for your new file and click Save.  To run the REG file, double-click its icon. A dialog box opens, informing you that information has been entered into the Registry. Click OK to dismiss the dialog box.
After you restart the computer, the Shortcut To prefix no longer appears in your new shortcuts. Note that only those shortcuts created after the Registry change lack the prefix--those created prior to the change retain it.

START THE SCREEN SAVER - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
You can set a screen saver to start shortly after the system starts if nobody logs on using a Registry edit. As usual, be very careful when you edit the Registry.
Before you open RegEdit, locate the screen saver you want to use. You'll find them in \Winnt\system32. The screen savers have an SCR extension. Write down the name of the one you want to use--you'll need it later.
Now click Start, Run, then type: regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_USERS \DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop. In RegEdit's right pane, locate SCRNSAVE.EXE and double-click its icon. When the Edit String dialog box opens, type in the full path and name of your screen saver file. For example, you might select c:\winnt\system32\ssmaze.scr to use the Maze screen saver. After you enter the name of the screen saver, click OK to close the dialog box and save your selection. Next, locate ScreenSaveTimeOut and double-click its icon. When the Edit String dialog box opens, enter the delay time you want to use in seconds and click OK to close the dialog box and record your selection. Now choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit.
The next time you start your computer, the screen saver starts after 30 seconds if no one logs on. Note that these changes have no effect on your standard screen saver selection.

DUAL-BOOT MENU. - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
You can get your dual-boot menu back quite easily. In Windows 98, run Windows Explorer and navigate to the root folder. Right-click Boot.ini and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, deselect the Read Only check box and click OK. Now double-click Boot.ini to open it. Your Timeout value is currently set to zero. Set it to a higher value of your choice and then choose File, Save to save your changes. With Boot.ini saved, right-click its icon again and choose Properties. Select the Read Only check box and click OK. When you restart your computer, you can choose to boot Windows NT Workstation 4.0.

XCOPY AND FILE ATTRIBUTES.
When you use Xcopy at the Command Prompt to copy a group of files, NT resets all read-only attributes by default. If you need the files' read-only attribute to stay the same, you can type xcopy files /k and press Enter. The /k parameter copies the files with the attributes already set for those files.

MENU DELAY
When you choose a menu item that opens a submenu, Windows NT 4.0 inserts a small delay. This delay prevents submenus from opening as you move through a menu, taking up time and computing power. You can set NT to cruise through menus without the delay or make the length of the delay longer. To do so, launch the Registry Editor, then locate the following key (but always be careful when editing the Registry--we can't guarantee that the effects of Registry edits will be what you expect or that they won't do any harm):
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop In RegEdit's right pane, locate MenuShowDelay and double-click its icon to open it. When the dialog box opens, type 0 for no delay or a larger number than the default to set a longer delay. Close RegEdit and restart the computer.

LOCALLY CACHED PROFILE.
By default, the locally cached copy of a profile is stored in %SystemRoot%\Profiles\, which may be an issue if you have a large number of people logging on to a computer. This process puts a huge demand on disk space. Fortunately, you can move the locally cached copy of a profile to another local partition. To move the locally cached copy of the profile, you need to know the security identifier (SID) of the user whose profile you want to move. You can find the SID with GetSID.exe from the Windows NT Server 4.0 Resource Kit.

WINDOWS NT REMOVABLE MEDIA REQUIREMENTS AND LIMITATIONS.
Windows NT treats most removable hard disks and magnetic-optical disk drives as hard disks because it must partition them and assign them a drive letter. NT includes support for most of these devices; however, it doesn't support write-once disk drives.  The following rules apply as to which removable media devices Windows NT supports:
A removable hard disk can have only one primary partition.
Windows NT supports only the Windows NT file system (NTFS) and MS-DOS-compatible (FAT) file system on removable media.
Windows NT does not support removable disks in a fault-tolerant manner.

WHERE IS THE MOUSE? - Windows NT Workstation 4.0
You can use a Registry edit to tell Windows NT Workstation 4.0 that a serial mouse is present, even when the system fails to detect it. Be careful when editing the Registry.
Click Start, Run, type regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet \Services\Sermouse\Parameters. Right-click the right pane and choose New, DWORD Value. Name your new key OverrideHardwareBitstring. Double-click the new entry and enter 1 if you use COM1 and 2 if you use COM2. Close RegEdit (choose Registry, Exit) and restart the computer.
Note: This tip does NOT apply to the PS/2 mouse port.

DIAL-UP NETWORKING.
Here's how to delete the Dial-Up Networking icon in My Computer. Don't do this unless you have a very good reason to delete Dial-Up Networking.
Click Start, Run, type regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\ {a4d92740-67cd-11cf-96f2-00aa00a11dd9}. Now, since you want to be able to undo what you're about to do, choose Registry, Export Registry File. When the Export Registry File dialog box opens, name the file DialOn and click Save. You can use this file later to reinstall your Dial-Up Networking icon.
With the key exported to a file, click {a4d92740-67cd-11cf-96f2-00aa00a11dd9} and press Delete to delete the key. Choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit.
At this point, you can double-click My Computer to open it. You should no longer have a Dial-Up Networking icon. If the icon is still visible, restart the computer.
You can still use all your dial-up connections, but without the icon you can't add or delete connections.
If you decide to reinstall the Dial-Up Networking icon, locate your exported Registry file, DialOn.reg, and double-click its icon. This merges the original key back into the Registry, and the Dial-Up Networking icon reappears. Again, you may need to restart the computer.

REMOVE NT MANUALLY.
If you want to remove NT from the boot sector of a system, here are two ways to do so.
First, if you simply want to return the system to an MS-DOS configuration, boot the system from a DOS disk and type SYS C: to overwrite the NT boot sector with the MS-DOS boot sector. You'll need to delete the following files manually from the root folder:
Pagefile.sys
Boot.ini
Ntldr
Ntdetect.com
Ntbootdd.sys

Another option is to go back to your original Windows 95 setup. To do this, boot your computer from a Windows 95 bootable floppy disk and use the SYS command as described above.

INSTALL NT OVER A NETWORK.
You can ease the task of installing NT on your systems by taking advantage of your network. To install NT from the network, simply copy your Windows NT installation files onto a central server. Then you can perform NT installations from the network using the WINNT command or by copying the entire I386 folder from the Windows NT CD-ROM to the hard disk, then running WINNT from the local disk.

A NEW PASSWORD.
"I use Windows NT Workstation 4.0 with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3. Some months ago, I set the Content Advisor password because my children were surfing the Internet. Now I have forgotten the password and can't access many of the sites I need. These sites don't contain offensive material--they are simply unrated. Is there a way to delete the password, or at least find out what it is?"
This is a job for RegEdit. Be very careful when using RegEdit. Close Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 if it's running. Now click Start, Run, type in regedit and press Enter (or click OK). When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Policies\Ratings. You'll see a key (aptly named 'Key') in the right pane of RegEdit. Click to select it, then click Delete. When the dialog box opens, click Yes.
Now move to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Policies\Ratings\.Default. Click .Default, then press Delete again. Click Yes when the warning dialog box opens.
Choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit. Then run Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 and choose View, Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the Security tab. Now click Disable Ratings. When the Password dialog box opens, leave the password blank (you deleted it in RegEdit) and click OK. You'll get a dialog box informing you that Content Advisor is off. Click OK in this dialog box to continue. Now click OK to close the Options dialog box and save your changes.

AUTO LOG ON.
We discussed automatic log-on (the tip that will never die) last month. Since then, we have received mail from several users who would like to have automatic log-on available to people other than the administrator. One subscriber works in a library and needs to allow members of the public to log on. The question is, can you log on a person other than the administrator?
The answer is yes, you can. Let's look at the library example. Say the user name in this case is Public and the password is public. Let's make the necessary changes to last month's REG file.
To create the REG file, run Notepad and enter the file as shown. Where you see BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter.

and public and click OK. Now you're in Public. If you restart the computer, the system automatically logs on to Public with no input from the users. When you need to log on as an administrator, click Start, Shut Down. When the Shut Down Windows dialog box appears, select the 'Close all programs and log on as a different user?' radio button. Click Yes and hold down Shift while the system starts. This time, you'll get the startup dialog box, where you can enter Administrator and your password. When you're ready to go back to Public, use the same method to restart and change the log-on to the following: Public and public

LOAD FROM HERE.
When you install new hardware, the system always asks for Windows NT Workstation 4.0 at a:\. How can you change it to d:\i386?
You can change the source to point at the \i386 folder on your installation CD using RegEdit. If you decide to do this, be careful and back up your Registry first.
With your backup ready, click Start, Run, type in regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\ CurrentVersion. In RegEdit's right pane, you'll see a key named SourcePath. Double-click its icon and enter into the Edit String dialog box d:\i386 (assuming that D: is your CD-ROM drive)
Click OK to save your change and close the dialog box. Now choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit. Restart the computer and the system will now look in d:\i386 for its files.

INVESTIGATE THE HARDWARE.
Would you like to take a really good look at what hardware your system detects? If so, you need to try Windows NT Workstation 4.0's Hardware Query Tool. This tool can check all the hardware installed in your computer--Plug and Play or not.
To use the program, put your Windows NT Workstation 4.0 installation CD into the CD-ROM drive. The disc should autostart. If it doesn't, open My Computer and double-click the CD-ROM icon. When the opening screen appears, click Browse This CD. Navigate to \Support\Hqtool and insert a blank floppy disk into drive A:. Now double-click the Makedisk.bat icon to open the program. Makedisk.bat creates a bootable floppy disk.
With your new floppy disk in A:, restart the computer. Follow the dialog boxes in the Hqtool program. and it will investigate your system and present a report. You can print or save the results of the hardware report.

DIAL IT YOUR WAY – BATCH FILE.
If you'd rather not fool with all the problems of Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Dial-up Networking, you can write a batch file that dials your ISP, runs Microsoft Internet Explorer (or some other browser), then hangs up when you're finished.
To create this batch file, run Notepad and enter the following code:
"c:\winnt\system32\RasPhone - d Insert your ISP as listed in Dial-Up"
"c:\Program Files\Plus!\Microsoft Internet\IEXPLORE.EXE"
"c:\winnt\system32\rasdial Your ISP server as listed in Dial-Up /disconnect"

Make sure you don't forget the quotation marks when you enter the code. Now choose File, Save As. Name the file Dial.cmd (Dial isn't important, but the CMD extension is) and save it in a convenient folder.
You can place a shortcut to Dial.cmd on the desktop. Once the shortcut is in place, right-click the icon and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Shortcut tab. Now click the arrow at the right side of the Run list box and choose Minimised. This prevents the MS-DOS window from showing up when you run the file.
The path names in the batch file may not be the same as yours. Use Windows NT Explorer to locate the necessary file locations and substitute your path for the ones shown.

QUICK WIN 95/8 LOGON.
You can prevent your Windows 95 and 98 systems from requiring you to enter a separate Windows password when you log on to an NT domain, saving time and keystrokes. To do this, you'll use the Windows Registry Editor (as always, be careful when editing the Registry--we can't guarantee the results). Once you launch it, locate the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\
Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Network
Next, from the Edit menu, select New, then value DWORD, and enter the name DisablePwdCaching. Set the value to 1, then save and close Regedit. The next time you boot the system, you'll no longer have to enter a local password, just the domain name. Also, the next time you access the Password control panel applet, the Change Windows Password button under Windows Password will be greyed out.

PREVENTING SYSTEM SHUTDOWN.
If you manage NT systems that more than one user accesses, you may want to prevent them from shutting down the system. If so, you can remove the shutdown user right from the workstation's Everyone and Users groups. To do so, you'll need to log on with administrative rights and launch User Manager. Next select User Rights from the Policies menu and choose the Shutdown option. Choose the Everyone group in the Grant To box; click the Remove button and do the same for the Users group. Finally, click OK to save your changes.

ELIMINATING THE "CLICK HERE TO BEGIN".
Tired of seeing the little "Click here to begin" message each time you start NT? You can turn it off with a simple Registry change (as always, be careful when editing the Registry, we can't guarantee the results). Launch the NT Registry Editor and locate the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
For the value NoStartBanner, set the value to 1 to hide the arrow and caption.

HIDING A MACHINE FROM NETWORK BROWSERS.
You can hide a machine from network browsers, yet still have it available for connection. The process is simple. You'll use NT's Registry Editor to modify the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanManServer\Parameters
To hide a machine, set the value Hidden from 0 to 1, and restart your system. You can still connect to the computer, but the browser won't display it.

RESTRICTING NETWORK NEIGHBORHOOD VIEWS.
You can prevent Network Neighborhood from displaying computers in your local workgroup or domain with a simple Registry change (as always, be careful when editing the Registry--we can't guarantee the results). You can still access these computers; they just don't show up in the Network Neighbourhood listing. To make this change, use the NT Registry Editor to modify the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows:
For the value NoWorkgroupContents, set the value to 1. Save your changes and restart your system.

PLAY IT SAFE.
Would you like to make sure there is no information remaining in the page file after a system shuts down?
For an easy way to clear the page file, we decided to write a REG file to do the job.
Remember, REG files can prove dangerous, and we don't guarantee this one will do what you expect. To generate the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following information exactly as shown. Where you see BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter (don't type BLANK LINE GOES HERE).
REGEDIT4
BLANK LINE GOES HERE
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\ Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"ClearPageFileAtShutdown"=dword:00000001
BLANK LINE GOES HERE

Now choose File, Save As, and name the file Page.reg. Locate a folder for the file and click Save.
This REG file inserts the Value name ClearPageFileAtShutdown and sets it to 1. This causes Windows NT Workstation 4.0 to clear as much of the page file as it can at shutdown. Note that Windows NT Workstation 4.0 can't clear all the pages since some are active at shutdown. It clears only the inactive pages.

RESTRICTING SAVE SETTINGS OPTIONS.
You can prevent users from altering NT system settings that affect the position of your icons and open windows and the size and position of your taskbar. To set these restrictions, you'll need to edit the following key using NT's Registry Editor: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
For the NoSaveSettings value, you can set a value of 1 (the default is 0), so that changes to the positions of icons and open windows and the size and position of the taskbar are not saved.

XCOPY ATTRIBUTES.
"Have you ever noticed that Xcopy changes the attributes when you copy files from a CD? The files on the CD are always read-only, but Xcopy strips that attribute. If you want the files to remain read-only after the copy, type xcopy (folderName) /k and press Enter. Xcopy will no longer remove the read-only attribute from the copied files.

COMMAND LINE MESSAGING.
Need to send a quick message to others on your NT network? You can do this (provided you have started the Messenger service on your server) from the Command Prompt using the Net Send command. At the Command Prompt, to send a message type: net send recipient "message"
Just replace the recipient placeholder with the machine name of the person you wish to message, or type an asterix (*) to broadcast to all stations. Make sure you enclose the message in quotation marks!

PREVENTING DEFAULT ADMINISTRATION SHARES.
Each time you start an NT workstation, it automatically creates some shared resources. This includes a share to the root directory of the hard drive, invisible during browsing, yet still accessible by typing the share name (C$). You can prevent this automatic function by editing the following key in your NT Registry (as always, we can't guarantee that the results of Registry edits will be as you expect; proceed with caution):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\ LanmanServer\Parameters
To make the change, create a value called AutoShareWks (AutoShareServer for server) of type DWORD with a value of 0. Save your changes and restart your system to make the change.

NETWORK ADAPTER INFORMATION.
Just type IPCONFIG /all at the Command Prompt. IPCONFIG will display the card description, physical address, IP address, subnet mask, and more.

SYNCHRONIZING WORKSTATION/SERVER
Need a quick way to synchronise the time of your NT workstation with a server? To do this, at a command prompt enter the following: NET TIME \\(name of the server to set time to) /SET /YES

REBOOT THE SYSTEM
If you have installed Service Pack 4, you can reboot your system immediately by pressing Shift-Ctrl-Alt-Delete. The option is there, but you'll have to do a simple Registry edit to activate it.
We decided to create a REG file to activate your reboot option. As usual, remember that REG files modify the Registry and can be dangerous to your system.
To write the reboot REG file, run Notepad and type the following as shown. Where you see the words BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter. Do not type BLANK LINE GOES HERE.

REGEDIT4
BLANK LINE GOES HERE 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
BLANK LINE GOES HERE 
"EnableQuickReboot"="1"
BLANK LINE GOES HERE  

Choose File, Save As, and name the file Reboot.reg. Locate a folder for the new file and click Save.
To use the file, double-click its icon. A dialog box appears, informing you that the file has merged. The change takes effect the next time you restart the computer.
Note that the quick reboot is an emergency measure (just as it is in Windows 95 and 98). Do not use this method for a normal reboot.

DRAG AND DROP & FLOPPY DRIVES.
Are you experiencing problems when you try to drag and drop items to or from your floppy drives? In particular, does your system lock up when you attempt this task? If so, you may have a conflict between your high-performance video card and your BIOS. As a troubleshooting step, try editing the NT Registry by adding the key name DisableUSWC (leave the Class empty) to the following Key: KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\ Control\GraphicsDrivers

STARTING AN UNSEEN PROGRAM.
You can run a program in Windows NT Workstation 4.0 without placing it in the Startup folder. However, you'll have to do a Registry edit. As always, be careful when fooling with the Registry.
Click Start, Run, type regedit and press Enter (or click OK). Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows
In the right pane, you'll see Load and Run. To run a program, double-click the Run icon and enter the name and path of your program. For example, to run a program named MyProg.exe located in the \Special folder, you'd enter c:\Special\MyProg.exe
Click OK to save the entry, then close RegEdit (choose Registry, Exit). Your changes take effect the next time you restart the computer.

CACHED CLOSED FILES.
Did you know that you can determine the time limit and number of cached closed files on your NT system? When an application closes a file, it remains in the cache for a set amount of time. The Registry entry that handles the timeout and number is: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\ Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters
The settings you can tweak are as follows: CacheFileTimeout is a type REG_DWORD with a data value range of 0x0 - 0xFFFFFFFF seconds. The default is 0xA (10 seconds). The value name determines how long a file remains in the cache after it's closed.
DormantFileLimit is a type REG_DWORD with a range of 0x0 - 0xFFFFFFFF files. The default is 45 files.

REDUCING NETWORK TRAFFIC.
By default, NT keeps dormant connections open for 10 minutes. You can easily increase dormant connection timeout, reducing network traffic. For example, if you have an application that opens or closes and reopens a UNC path less frequently than 10 minutes, you can reduce network traffic by increasing the default. To do this, edit the following Registry entry, adding the Value name KeepConn as a type REG_DWORD (the default is 600 seconds and the range is 1 - 65,535 seconds):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\ Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters

NTBACKUP FAILURE?
If you're experiencing problems with NTBackup occasionally failing, the problem may be that the default time allowed doesn't give the tape drive enough time to complete the last operation. To increase this time range, you can edit the following Registry Key, adding the Value name Drive Settling Time as a type REG_SZ (the default value is 60 seconds) and setting it to 120: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\NTBackup\Hardware

CD DRIVE LETTER.
To set the CD drive letter in Windows NT Workstation 4.0, click Start, Programs, Administrative Tools (Common), Disk Administrator. When Disk Administrator opens, click the drive letter you want to change (F, in your case) and choose Tools, Assign Drive Letter. The Assign Drive Letter dialog box opens. Use the spin box to select your new drive letter, then click OK to make the assignment and close the dialog box. A dialog box appears, asking if you want to continue. If you do, click Yes. Back in Disk Administrator, choose Partition, Exit to close the program.

ICON SPACING.
NT provides two ways you can adjust the spacing of icons on your desktop. Those who are menu-driven should right-click a blank area of the desktop, then choose Properties. On the Appearance tab, use the Item drop-down box to select Icon Spacing (Horizontal) or Icon Spacing (Vertical) and toggle Size to make your adjustments. Finally, click the Apply button to save your changes.
For those who prefer to make changes in the Registry, you can perform the same tasks by editing the following Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
The values you can tweak are:
Edit IconSpacing, a type REG_SZ value, for the horizontal setting. The default for small icons is 131 and for large icons is 147.
Edit IconVerticalSpacing, a type REG_SZ value. The small icon default is 75 and large icon default is 91.

CLICK THE DESKTOP.
To put the desktop into the Start menu, run Windows NT Explorer and go to \Winnt\Profiles\User Name\Desktop (User Name is your personal user name). Right-click Start and choose Open. Now use the right mouse button to drag the Desktop icon from Windows NT Explorer to the Start menu. Release the mouse button. When the menu appears, choose Copy.
This procedure produces a Start menu item that behaves like all other Start menu items--when you move the mouse pointer over the item, a submenu opens.

DIR WIDE ALWAYS.
To make the DIR command default to the wide version, you need to change the DIRCMD. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, and double-click the System icon. When the System Properties dialog box opens, click the Environment tab. Next click the entry box labelled Variable, type dircmd and press Tab to move to the Value entry box. In Value, type /w and click Set. Finally, click OK to close the dialog box and apply your new settings. From this point on, typing DIR at the Command Prompt produces the wide listing.

WE LIKE EDIT.
By default, Windows NT Workstation 4.0 uses NotePad as the batch file editor. But if you'd like to use Edit.com, you can make it the default editor. Let's edit the Registry to make the change. As always, be very careful when changing the Registry. Click Start, Run, type regedit and click OK (or press Enter). When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\batfile\shell\edit\command. In the right pane, double-click the Default icon to open the Edit String dialog box. Type c:\winnt\system32\edit.com and click OK. Choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit. Restart the computer.
Now when you right-click a batch file and choose Edit, the file opens in Edit.com instead of Notepad.

ACCESS DENIED WHEN DELETING A FILE.
NT should allow you to delete any file in folders for which you have Full Control permissions, even if the file is set to No Access or Delete (only). Unfortunately, NT Explorer has a bug that prevents this, specifically when it attempts to move the file to the Recycle Bin. Microsoft has a workaround with the following steps. First, add Read permission to the file, then use File Manager (Winfile.exe), deleting the file using the Del command. Another workaround is to hold down the shift key when deleting a file to prevent it from moving to the Recycle Bin.

DON'T OPEN EXPLORER.
You can prevent Explorer or Control Panel from opening, even if you forget to kill them before you shut down. However, you'll have to edit your Registry. Be careful--you don't want to damage your system.
Click Start, Run, then type Regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. If you don't see an entry called NoSaveSettings, you need to add it.
To add the value, right-click RegEdit's right pane and choose Binary Value. Name the new value NoSaveSettings and press Enter twice (once to save the name and once to open the Edit Binary Value dialog box). Set the value to 01 00 00 00 and click OK.
If you already have NoSaveSettings, double-click it and set its value to 01 00 00 00. Click OK to continue. Close RegEdit and restart the computer.

PAGING FILE SIZE.
For the best performance on your NT workstation, you should set the initial paging file size to 12MB more than your system RAM. To check or modify the paging file settings, right-click My Computer and choose Properties. When the System dialog box opens, click the Performance tab, click Virtual Memory, then Change to check your current settings. If the initial setting isn't the desired RAM plus 12MB, select the drive on which you want the paging file to appear (or the one it's currently on), then type in Initial and Maximum settings. This should be RAM plus 12MB for Initial and more, if you like, for Maximum (watch that hard disk space, though). Click Set, Close to close the dialog box and record your change. You'll have to restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

REMOVE A DRIVE.
You can prevent the drive from appearing in My Computer using Disk Administrator. Try this: Click Start, Programs, Administrative Tools, Disk Administrator. When Disk Administrator opens, click the drive you want to remove, then choose Tools, Assign Drive Letter. When the Assign Drive Letter dialog box opens, select the radio button labelled "Do not assign a drive letter," and click OK to close the dialog box. Click Yes when asked to confirm.
Now choose Partition, Exit to close Disk Administrator. The drive you eliminated no longer appears in My Computer or in Windows NT Explorer. Restarting the computer will cause no problems. If you should need access to the drive again, just run Disk Administrator and assign the drive a letter.
Note: Use this method to remove only unneeded CD-ROM drives--do not remove the drive letter assignment for your system disk. Removing the assignment from your system disk will cause you a lot of unnecessary problems.

OPENING A FOLDER.
There is a way to stop the animation of a folder using a Registry edit or a REG file. Let's do it with a REG file this time. Remember that REG files can damage your system, so be careful.
To generate the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following as shown. Where you see BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter to enter a blank line.
REGEDIT4 BLANK LINE GOES HERE [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics] "MinAnimate"="0" BLANK LINE GOES HERE
Now, choose File, Save As and name your file Animate.reg. Locate a folder for the file and click Save.
To use Animate.reg, double-click its icon. When the dialog box informing you that your file has been merged appears, click OK to close it. The new setting takes effect the next time you start the computer.

LOG-ON WARNING MESSAGE.
Need to add a custom warning message to your log-on process? For example, you might include the following message at log-on: "This system is for use by employees only. Please see a system administrator before attempting to access this computer."
It's simple. To create the warning message, you'll use RegEdit. Always proceed with caution when editing the Registry--changes to it can damage your system.
To launch RegEdit, click the Start button and choose Run. Now type regedit (which is not case sensitive). Next, drill down to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/Current Version/Winlogin entry and edit the LegalNoticeCaption and LegalNoticeText entries to include your message. Restart your system to make the change active.

TURNING OFF CD AUTORUN.
If you have a habit of leaving a CD in your computer's player, you'll be interested to know that you can prevent the CD Autorun feature from launching at start-up. This prevents audio CDs or those with Autorun.exe files from starting when you boot up your system. This tip requires a Registry edit--always proceed with caution when editing the Registry, as changes to it can damage your system.
To make the change, launch RegEdit by clicking the Start button, choosing Run, then typing regedit (which is not case sensitive) and pressing OK. Drill down to the KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/Cdrom setting and change the value for Autorun to 0. Restart your system and the change takes effect, preventing the automatic launch of CDs in your system.

REMOVE THE BRIEFCASE.
Yes, you can remove Briefcase entirely. You'll have to edit the Registry, though. So, if you want to continue, be careful.
Click Start, Run. Type regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKey_Classes_Root.
Now scroll down to Briefcase and click to select it. Choose Registry, Export Registry File. When the Export Registry File dialog box opens, type Brief and click Save.
Note: Do not skip this step--it is very important that you make this backup of the Briefcase key. If you do not, you won't be able to restore the Briefcase later.
With the Briefcase key saved, you can now choose Edit, Delete to delete the key. Finally, choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit and apply your changes.
When you right-click the desktop and choose New, you'll see that there is no Briefcase option listed.
If you want to return Briefcase to your system, locate Brief.reg and double-click its icon to merge the original Registry entries with the current Registry.

NO WINDOWS KEY.
Want to disable the Flying Windows key in Windows NT Workstation 4.0 when it appears on the keyboard? As usual, be careful when using REG files--they can harm your system.
To create the file, run Notepad and enter the following. Where you see BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter to enter a blank line.
REGEDIT4 BLANK LINE GOES HERE [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet \Control\Keyboard Layout] "Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03, 00,00,00,00,00,5b,e0,00,00,5c,e0,00,00,00,00 BLANK LINE GOES HERE
Now choose File, Save As. Name the file NoWin.reg and click Save.
To merge the file with your current Registry, double-click its icon and click OK when the dialog box opens to tell you the job is done. The change will take effect the next time you start the computer.
Note: Be very careful when entering the Scancode. If you should enter an incorrect number or enter a number in the wrong place, your keyboard may not function properly.
To regain the Windows key, run Notepad and create the REG file shown here.
REGEDIT4 BLANK LINE GOES HERE [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet \Control\Keyboard Layout] "Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00 BLANK LINE GOES HERE
Choose File, Save As and name this file KBWin.reg. Click Save to close the dialog box and save your file. Double-click the file's icon to merge it with the Registry. After a restart, your Windows key will once again function.

CHOOSING A DIFFERENT BOOT OPTION.
When you set up your dual-boot system, you'll be installing Windows NT 4.0 on a system that already has Windows 95. During this install, NT claims the role of the default option at system start-up. Of course, you'll have the option to boot to Windows 95 from the menu, at least for 30 seconds. If you'd like to change the default to Windows 95, you can do so in the System Settings window. To make the change, click Start, then choose Control Panel from the Settings option. Finally, double-click the System icon to view your system options. Click the Startup/Shutdown tab, displaying a list of your boot options. To make a change, simply select the option you want as the default. While you're here, you may wish to adjust the wait time. Click OK to save your changes, then restart your system.

SECURITY LEVELS--128 BIT OR 40 BIT?
With the rising concerns about security, it's important to know your NT system and what version you have--40 bit or 128 bit. However, 128 bit is the new standard only for our part of the world. It's illegal to ship 128-bit software outside North America.
You can check your version by checking the properties of the schannel.dll file on your system. To do this, launch Explorer and go to the System32 folder. Find the file schannel.dll, then right-click it and choose Properties from the menu. If you see Domestic Use Only on the Version tab, you have a 128-bit version of NT. If you see Export, you're running the 40-bit version.
Another easy way to identify your version is to look at the contents of the file prodspec.ini on the original installation CD you used to load NT on your system. You'll find it in the \I386 directory. The last line should read BitVersion=128 or BitVersion=40.

NEW LOG-ON BACKGROUND.
You can display your favourite bitmap during log-on to your NT system. To do so, create your bitmap and move it to your NT directory. Be sure to use the 8.3 naming convention. Next, launch RegEdit to make the change. Always proceed with caution when editing the Registry--changes to it can damage your system.
To launch RegEdit, click Start, then Run. Type regedit (which is not case sensitive) and then click OK. Drill down to the HKEY_USERS\DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop entry, and edit the REG_SZ of Wallpaper entry, setting the value to the full path of your bitmap file. Next you need to set the value for REG_SZ of TileWallpaper, to 0 for no tiling or 1 for tiling. Finally, specify the value for REG_SZ of WallpaperStyle, setting it to 0 for normal, 2 to stretch to fill the screen (which is mutually exclusive with TileWallpaper = 1). Click OK to save your changes, exit RegEdit, and restart your system to display the new background.

IS YOUR DESKTOP SLOW OR DO YOUR ICONS FLASH?
Does it sometimes seem that your desktop builds too slowly or that icons flash instead of just appearing? The source of the problem may be a Windows NT Registry key command that causes the ShellIconCache file to flush. If this is happening to you, try the following (always proceed with caution when editing the Registry--changes to it can damage your system).
Locate the following key in your Windows NT Registry using REGEDT32: Hkey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer Increase the value called "Max Cached Icons" REG_SZ to 8000 and save your changes.

CHANGING LOCALE
If you need to use more than one locale because you sometimes send information to other countries, you can easily set up multiple locales in Windows NT 4.0 Workstation. Begin by clicking Start, Settings, Control Panel. When Control Panel opens, double-click Regional Settings. In the Regional Settings Properties dialog box, select the Input Locales tab.
To add a new locale, click Add. When the Add Input Locale dialog box opens, click the arrow at the right side of the Input Locale list box to expand the list. Then, select your new locale from the list. Let's say that you need to send material to the United Kingdom. In this case, you'd select English (United Kingdom). Now, click OK to record your selection and close the dialog box.
Back in the Regional Settings Properties dialog box select the Enable Indicator On Taskbar check box. Then, click OK to close the dialog box and save your selections. You can now close Control Panel by clicking its close box, (the X in the upper-right corner).
To switch between your locale selections, press Left Alt-Shift. To make sure you made the switch, move the mouse pointer over the locale icon in the taskbar. The ToolTip will display the currently selected locale.

CHANGING DUAL-BOOT OPTIONS UNDER NT 4.0
If you installed Windows NT 4.0 after Windows 95, you most likely opted for dual boot. By default, NT makes itself the default option when booting, and displays the menu for 30 seconds.
To change these settings, double-click My Computer, then Control Panel, then the System icon. Select the tab labelled Startup/Shutdown. At the top of this tab is a list of all the boot options--select the one you want as the default. You can also adjust the wait time while you're at it.

SPEED UP YOUR SERVER DESKTOP.
If you're running Windows NT Server 4.0 as your desktop operating system, you can adjust a setting that drastically speeds up the system, making it nearly as responsive for desktop use as Windows NT Workstation. To make the change, go to Control Panel, double-click the Network icon, and select the Services tab. Highlight Server and click the Properties button. By default, NT Server sets the Optimisation setting to Maximise Throughput For File Sharing. Instead, select Minimize Memory Used. This reallocates memory to make your NT Server desktop more responsive.

MAKE POWER-DOWN AUTOMATIC AT SHUTDOWN.
On newer systems based on the ATX motherboard standard, the system automatically powers down when Windows 95 shuts down. The system displays the "It is now safe to turn off your computer" screen, then sends a software signal that powers off the computer. You can set Windows NT 4.0 to do this as well, since it's not set to do so by default. To enable this feature, launch the NT Registry Editor and locate the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/Current Version/Winlogon
Now set the PowerDownAfterShutdown value to 1 and save your changes (if you don't have the entry, right-click in the RegEdit right pane and choose New, String Value and name it PowerDownAfterShutdown.) The next time you shut down, your system will, too.
You need to replace Hal.dll with Hal.dll.softex from the Service Pack 5 disc. Copy Hal.dll.softex to your \Winnt\System32 folder. Rename the original Hal.dll to Hal.xxx and then rename Hal.dll.softex to Hal.dll.
Note:This works on Dell models after Gxpro (Pentium-200 Pro). Also it works for Service Pack 4 users. There is a hal.dll.softex in the Service Pack 4 40-bit and 128-bit versions. The file doesn't work on IBM ThinkPad models 600 and 600e.

ADDING PROCESSORS TO NT.
In some cases, if you install Windows NT on a single-processor system, then add additional processors at a later time, Windows NT may fail to recognise the additional processor, leaving it unused. If this happens to you, you can run a utility found in the NT Resource Kit called uptomp.exe. This utility allows NT to recognise the additional processors without reinstallation.

REMOVING DUAL BOOT AFTER UNINSTALLING NT.
When you install Windows NT on a system that already has a copy of Windows 95 installed, NT sets up dual boot on your system by default. However, if you then delete the /WINNT directory to remove Windows NT, your system still displays a boot menu at start-up. You can remove that menu, then boot from a Windows 95 start-up disk, then execute the SYS C: command. After it completes, you'll see the message System Transferred. Remove the disk and reboot, and your system should boot straight into Windows 95.

QUICK RESTART.
Need a quick restart? You can force Windows NT to reload without going through the POST and real-mode load sequences, speeding up the restart process. To do so, hold down the Shift key while pressing OK when you click Start, Shut Down, Restart Windows.

EDITING YOUR BOOT MENU.
If you have Windows NT and Win95 installed on your computer, the Windows 95 selection on the boot menu might read Microsoft Windows instead of Windows 95. To avoid confusion, you can easily edit this entry. To do so, find the Boot.ini file on your root directory and remove its read-only attributes by typing attrib c:\boot.ini-r-s at the command prompt. Then, in a text editor, open Boot.ini and change the Microsoft Windows line to Microsoft Windows 95 or whatever you want to call it. Just be sure to put the new menu entry in quotes. Then save the file, go to the command prompt, and type attrib c:\boot.ini +r +s

ENABLE PROXY AGENT.
NT 3.5x featured an option under TCP/IP settings that let you enable the WINS Proxy Agent so that a non-WINS enabled client could use WINS for NetBios name resolution. That option isn't available in NT 4.0, but you can enable the Proxy Agent by editing the Registry. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/ CurrentControlSet/Services/Netbt/Parameters and change the value for EnableProxy to 0x1.

REMOVING NT 4.0 WORKSTATION FROM A DUAL-BOOT COMPUTER.
"If you have dual-boot to Windows 98 or Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and remove Windows NT 4.0 Workstation the opening screen still asks which operating system you wish to use. To eliminate this step without damaging the Windows 98 installation insert your Windows 98 Startup disk and restart the computer. When you get the A: prompt, type sys c: and press Enter. This will transfer the Windows 98 system to your C drive. You can now remove the Startup disk and press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to restart. This time, you will boot directly into Windows 98.

CREATING A BOOT DISK FOR NT 4.0 WORKSTATION.
How do you make a boot floppy disk for Windows NT 4.0 Workstation?
The answer is that you can't actually make a Windows NT 4.0 Workstation boot disk in the same way that you'd make an MS-DOS or Windows 95 boot disk (the Windows 95 boot disk boots to the Windows 95 version of MS-DOS). The reason is that, unlike Windows 95/98, Windows NT 4.0 Workstation doesn't run on top of MS-DOS.
However, you can make a boot disk to get you going when you have a problem. Let's say that you have a dual-boot installation using Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and Windows 95/98. Very often, if you can't boot to Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, it's because your NTLDR file has been damaged. So, let's create a disk that will, at least, get you to the boot option list and allow you to get Windows NT 4.0 Workstation started. Once it starts, you can repair that damaged file.
To create the disk, insert a blank, formatted floppy into drive A. Next, run Windows NT Explorer and copy the following files to the floppy disk:

If you have NTBOOTDD.SYS in your boot folder, copy it to the floppy disk as well. When you have a problem starting your system, insert the new boot disk and restart. The boot disk allows you access when the files in the boot folder (usually Drive C:\) are damaged. This is not a true boot disk because there are no operating system files on the disk. The files on the disk simply offer you the possibility of choosing which system to boot.
Note: that we have not been able to test this disk on a system that runs only Windows NT 4.0 Workstation.

AVOID LOCKUPS.
One way to work around a Windows NT Explorer crash is to have each Explorer window run as a separate process. To do this, run the Registry Editor and look in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER subtree for the subkey Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer. Create a new DWORD value called DesktopProcess and set its data field to 1. Quit the Editor, log off, and log back on again. Now you can still get access to the taskbar and desktop whenever a particular window freezes up.

REBUILD YOUR DESKTOP ICONS.
To rebuild all of your desktop icons quickly, find the ShellIconCache file in your main Windows NT directory, then delete it. Log off and log back on again, and your icons should be rebuilt from scratch. The ShellIconCache file holds copies of all the desktop object's icons for speedy redraws and can occasionally become corrupted.

CREATE A LOCAL FTP DRIVE.
Some FTP sites that use NetBT connection protocols can be made into a logical drive on your local machine. You can do this with most machines that use IIS for FTP services.
First, select Control Panel, Network, Protocols, then double-click TCP/IP Protocol. Click the WINS Address tab and select Enable LMHOSTS Lookup. Next, in the %systemroot%SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC directory, create (or edit) a file called LMHOSTS and add the string w.x.y.z ftp #PRE where w.x.y.z is the IP address of the FTP server you're mounting as a logical drive. Do not use a domain name. From the command prompt, type nbtstat -R you should see the message Successful Purge And Preload Of The NBT Remote Cache Name Table.
Now, type the command nbtstat -c you should see a table listing the name and the host address of the FTP site, plus anything else you've entered in the LMHOSTS file. Finally, type the command net use X: \\ftp\ to connect the FTP site to your local X: drive. Perform this command last; it can be placed in a batch file that executes all these changes after you've already connected to your ISP. If you want to connect more drives to subdirectories of the FTP directory, enter the command net use driveletter: \\ftp\subdirectory where driveletter is the letter you want to use and subdirectory is the target FTP subdirectory. Experiment with this technique to see if your ISP's FTP services support it.

CHKDSK.
You can prevent CHKDSK from running at boot time by editing the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager key in the Registry and changing your current BootExecute's value to autocheck autochk * If CHKDSK is scheduled for multiple volumes, there will be an autocheck entry for each volume.

KEEPING PERMISSIONS WHEN COPYING FILES.
If you want to copy a block of files from one place to another and keep their original permissions intact, use the SCOPY command, which is available in the NT Resource Kit. This command-line utility is ideal for making backup copies of sensitive folders when you don't have easy access to a tape drive.

SYNCHRONIZE FROM THE COMMAND LINE.
If you make changes to your NT Domain's Security Accounts Manager, those changes only affect backup domain controllers until there's an automatic replication event. If you want to force synchronisation, fire up a command line on the primary domain controller machine and type net accounts /sync

SETTING THE BOOT SELECTION TIME TO INFINITE.
If you run both Windows 98 and Windows NT Workstation 4.0, you can set the selection screen timeout value to -1 to force it to never time out.
You can't enter a -1 in the spin box, so you'll have to enter it in the Boot.ini file. To do this, run Windows NT Explorer and locate Boot.ini. Right-click Boot.ini and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, deselect the Read-Only check box and click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes.
Now double-click the Boot.ini icon to open it in Notepad. When the file opens, locate Timeout and change it to -1. Now, choose File, Save. Next, right-click the file again in Windows NT Explorer and choose Properties. When the dialog box opens, select the check box labelled Read-Only and click OK to close the dialog box and save your settings. This will change the file back to Read-Only. When you restart the computer, your changes will take effect.

PREVENTING DIAL-UP NETWORKING FROM SAVING PASSWORDS.
There is there a way to keep people from saving passwords in Windows NT 4.0 Workstation Dial-up Networking. Although it is convenient to save the password, it is sometimes a problem and often a security risk. We decided to write a REG file to turn off the Save Password option.
As usual, please be careful when doing anything that changes the Registry. Remember that we can't guarantee that a REG file will do exactly what you expect on your system.
To write the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following as shown. When you see the line BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter to enter a blank line.

Now, choose File, Save As and name the file PassOff.reg. Select a folder for your new file and click Save. Double-click the new file's icon to place the information into your Registry.
When you restart the computer, your changes will take effect. If you want to turn password saving back on, change the DisableSavePassword line to "DisableSavePassword"=dword:00000000 and save the file as PassOn.reg. Run the new file to turn password saving back on.

REINSTALL.
If you need to reinstall Windows NT, you can reuse your previous Setup settings, saving a ton of time and keystrokes. To do so, simply type WINNT32 /U You won't be prompted for more information.

MAKE WIN95 BOOT FIRST.
If you have Windows NT and Windows 95 in a dual-boot setup, NT will want to be the operating system that boots, so it comes up first on the list of OS’s from which you can choose. To change the default OS to Windows 95, first boot up NT and select Control Panel, System. Then, click the Startup/Shutdown tab, where you can select the default startup operating system from a drop-down box.

TURNING OFF SERVICE PACK MESSAGE.
If you have to uninstall a service pack when working with one of the Windows NT Workstation 4.0 computers, you still get the message on bootup that the Service Pack is installed. The following REG file will remove the message when you have uninstalled a service pack.
To write the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following. Where you see BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter to enter a blank line.

Choose File, Save As and name the file SPOff.reg. Locate a folder and click Save to save the new file. You can now run this file after you uninstall a service pack.
Note that this works only when you have uninstalled a service pack. If you change the CSDVersion while a service pack is still installed, the information will simply get entered again when you boot up.

NT DIAGNOSTICS.
Track down system conflicts or find unused I/O interrupts in a hurry by using the Windows NT Diagnostics program. Select Run and type WINMSD on the command line. On the Resources tab, all system peripheral devices are sorted using various parameters, such as IRQ channel, I/O port, or DMA channel. Click an option to view your detected system devices. If you double-click a device, you'll be presented with the individual properties as defined.

DUAL BOOT.
If you've already installed NT and also want to install Win95 or Win98 and you want the two to remain separated, remember that NT can see up to four primary partitions per drive and Win95/98 can't. To take advantage of this, use NT to create a new FAT partition and Win95 or Win98 to create a bootable floppy disk (for safety's sake).
Copy the Win95/98 install files to the new partition. Boot the floppy disk, log on to the new FAT partition, and install Win95/98. This will automatically mark the FAT partition as startable. When you want to change back to NT, run FDISK and mark the original partition as startable. When you want to change from NT to Win95/98 again, use Disk Administrator to mark the FAT partition as startable.

SERVER SERVICE FAILS TO START.
If you apply Service Pack 3 or later before you install an NIC card and the networking components, the Service Pack doesn't update the srv.sys file because the file has not been installed yet. The Service Pack only UPDATES files that already exist. The error stems from the fact that the srv.sys file you are using (SP1) is not compatible with the updated SP3 system files.

SCSI PERFORMANCE.
Many systems you'll buy that come with Windows NT installed at the factory also come with SCSI drives. You may find that these drives give very slow uncached performance ratings on many low-level tests because their on-board write buffering is turned off by default. Your first thought might be to turn on write caching, hoping for some improvement. However, most experts agree that you don't need to do this because cached performance doesn't suffer from the default settings. If you still insist on turning the buffering on, you can do so using a SCSI utility from your SCSI adapter's manufacturer. But be aware that if you do, you'll have less data security, because write completion will be signalled before the data is committed to the disk surface.

ISOLATING OLD APPS.
If you still run some old DOS or 16-bit Windows apps under NT, you may experience problems if they crash. Fortunately, NT provides a way to isolate these programs from the operation system, protecting the OS in case of a crash. To isolate an application, go to the program's Properties dialog box (click on its icon and press Alt-Enter, or right-click and select Properties). At the bottom of the Properties dialog box, click Run Application In Own Memory Space. If the program crashes now, it affects only its own virtual machine, not the Windows kernel.

SCROLLING WORD 97.
In Word 97, if you grab the scroll bar with the mouse to scroll up or down the screen doesn't change until you release the mouse button. To make the screen to scroll while you move the scroll bar, click Start, Run, type regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Word\Options. Right-click the right-pane and choose New, String Value. Name your new value LiveScrolling. Double-click the new icon and enter 1. Click OK to close the dialog box and record your setting. Now choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit. The next time you start Word 97, you will get real-time screen updates as you scroll. As we're certain you always are, be very careful when editing the Registry.

EXPANDED DRIVES.
To open Windows NT Explorer so it doesn't expand the root folder (or any folder), run Windows NT Explorer and locate the shortcut you normally use to open Windows NT Explorer. Right-click the shortcut's icon and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Shortcut tab. Click the Target entry box and replace the current contents with %systemroot%\explorer.exe/e,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} Then click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes. Since the new name may prove difficult to enter without error, we suggest that you copy the line shown in this tip, then paste it into the Target entry box. Windows NT Explorer will now open with no expanded drives.

NO LOGOFF BUTTON.
To eliminate the Logoff button from the Windows NT Security dialog box that appears when you press Ctrl-Alt-Delete you will need to do a Registry edit. As we always point out, you should be very careful when you edit the Registry. To proceed, click Start, Run, type regedit and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. Right-click the right pane and choose New, DWORD Value. Name your new entry NoLogoff and press Enter twice to open the Edit DWORD Value dialog box. Enter 1 and press Enter. Now you can choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit. The change takes effect immediately--no restart is required.

TURNING OFF THE DESKTOP.
You can shut down your NT 4.0 desktop without shutting down NT. This may be especially helpful if your machine is short on memory. Right-click in the taskbar and bring up Task Manager. Select the Processes tab, highlight explorer.exe, and click the End Process button. Ignore the subsequent warning message and click Yes. NT Explorer will shut down, taking with it all desktop icons, the Start menu, and the taskbar. Task Manager (and any other open application) will continue to run.
If you click the Performance tab, you'll find you've gained 1MB to 3MB of RAM. You can now start programs from the Applications tab's New Task button. To get your desktop back, click New Task and type explorer.exe

MONITORING SYSTEM PERFORMANCE.
Need more information about your Windows NT system's performance? NT includes a Performance Monitor that tracks disk performance and activity. To activate it, go to the Start menu, select Programs, and launch the Command Prompt. Type diskperf-y When you reboot, Performance Monitor will be enabled.

REGISTRY RESTORATION.
Editing your NT Registry is a dangerous thing. Fortunately, NT provides a way to restore the old version should you make a mistake. To fix a mistake, you can reboot NT, then use the Last Known Good Configuration selection that appears during startup. This reverses the changes. Be careful with that Registry!

AUTOMATICALLY CLEARING LOG-ON NAMES.
If you have systems that many people use daily, you may want to have NT clear the user name from the log-on screen. As you know, NT 4.0 displays the name of the last person who logged on the system by default. Some people feel that this can pose a security threat, especially if a user's password can be guessed from the account name or the log-in environment.
Fortunately, you can tell NT not to display the previous user name--just follow these simple steps. You'll make the change using RegEdit. As always, the effects of Registry edits are not always predictable; proceed with caution.
To launch RegEdit, click Start, then Run. Type regedit (it's not case sensitive), then click OK. Drill down to the Hkey_Local_Machine\Subkey\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon entry, then select the ReportBootOK item. Next, select Edit, New, String Value from the menu. To make the change, type DontDisplayLastUserName for the string's name. Finally, double-click the new string to edit its value and change the value to 1. Click OK to save your changes, then restart your system to make them take effect.

FIND ICONS IN DLL’S.
After you run the REG file, DLL files that still appear in the default Windows NT set contain no icons. Any DLL file that displays an icon other than the default contains at least one icon you can use. Before you run the REG file, remember that we can't guarantee any REG file will do exactly what you expect. If you decide to use this REG file, run Notepad and enter the following as shown here. Where you see BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter.

Now choose File, Save As, and name your new file Icons.reg. Locate a folder for the file and click Save. To run the file, double-click its icon.

COMMUNICATION QUICK TOOLS.
Windows NT provides a couple of command-line tools you can use to resolve communication problems between servers on your IP networks. The command Ipconfig yields the server's IP address and gateway address. Likewise, you can use the NetView command to check high-level connectivity between servers or workstations. Quick ways to get important information!

EXPANDING THE FILES FROM NT WORKSTATION 4.0 CD-ROM.
Insert the Windows NT Workstation 4.0 disc into your CD-ROM drive and navigate to \i386. Double-click winnt32.exe to open it. When the Windows NT 4.00 Upgrade/Installation dialog box appears, click Options and deselect the Create Boot Floppy Disks check box. Click OK to close the dialog box. Now click Continue to save all the expanded files on drive C: in a folder named $win_nt$.500ls. Rename this folder to something such as NTSetup.

STEP-BY-STEP DETECTION.
When serious errors occur during startup on an NT machine, use the checked version of ntdetect.com to display detailed information as the boot process proceeds. To implement the checked version, rename ntdetect.com in the root of your system drive to ntdetect.bak. Next, copy ntdetect.chk from the Support\Debug\i386 folder of your NT installation CD-ROM to your root folder. Rename ntdetect.chk to ntdetect.com. Shut down and restart your system. As the system detects each hardware device, it displays the information on your monitor. When you're finished using ntdetect.com, reverse the procedure and replace the checked version of ntdetect with the backup file created above.

USING SEND TO WITH A ZIP DRIVE.
Just added an internal Zip drive to your Windows NT Workstation 4.0 system and want to add the new drive to Send To?
Run Windows NT Explorer and navigate to C:\WINNT\Profiles\Adminstrator\SendTo (assuming you're the Administrator) Now that you have the SendTo folder selected, click your Zip drive icon (in Windows NT Explorer) and use the right mouse button to drag the drive's icon to the SendTo folder. When the pop-up menu appears, choose Create Shortcut(s) Here. Now you can close Windows NT Explorer, and the new item appears in your Send To menu selection.

RUNNING WINDOWS NT WORKSTATION 4.0 AND WINDOWS 98.
The only problem is that Windows NT Workstation 4.0 can't boot from a FAT32 drive. If you use a single 4GB partition on your current drive, then it is a FAT32 drive.
To install Windows NT Workstation 4.0 on your computer, you can divide your new hard disk into two FAT16 partitions. Use the first one as your boot partition, and the other for Windows NT Workstation 4.0. This will leave your original disk free for use in Windows 98.
You will have to reinstall Windows 98 and then install Windows NT Workstation 4.0. Windows NT Workstation 4.0 can't use the original FAT32 drive, and Windows 98 will not see an NTFS partition (if you decide to use NTFS).

DISABLING DR. WATSON.
Yes, there is a Registry edit. Let's make it into a REG file, though. To create the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following. Where you see BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter to enter a blank line. Do not type in BLANK LINE GOES HERE.

Chose File, Save As, and name the file WatsonOff.reg. After you locate a folder in which to save the file, click Save. Double-click the file's icon to merge it with the Registry. To reenable Dr. Watson, copy the file and call it WatsonOn.reg. Change "auto"="0" to "auto"="1". Please remember that we don't guarantee any REG file to do what you want on your system.

SETTING THE ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE DIRCMD.
"You can make a permanent setting of the DIRCMD environment variable if you choose Start, Settings, Control Panel. When Control Panel opens, double-click the System icon. Now click the Environment tab, and enter DIRCMD in the Variable entry box, then enter /p in the Value entry box. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes. This permanently saves the DIRCMD environment variable setting in your user profile.

NT TOOLS--SYSDIFF UTILITY.
The sysdiff.exe utility is one of the useful command line tools that NT provides to manage your system. This NT 4.0 utility can profile an NT 4.0 server and install applications for NT. It's located on the NT 4.0 CD-ROM in the \Support\Hqtool directory.

SUPPRESSING USER INFO AT LOG-ON.
You can edit the Registry so that NT will not display the last user who logged in. From the Start, Run command line, type Regedt32. Then double-click the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE folder to expand it. Now double-click the following folders in sequence: Software, Microsoft, Windows NT, CurrentVersion. Click the Winlogon folder. In the right pane, find a key called DontDisplayLastUserName. Double-click it and change the value from 0 to 1.

ADDING TO THE SEND TO MENU.
You can add programs (or folders) to the Send To menu. To add Notepad.exe, run Windows NT Explorer and navigate to C:\Winnt (our NT folder) and locate notepad.exe. Now navigate to C:\Winnt\Profiles\Administrator\SendTo (for our example) and use the right mouse button to drag the notepad.exe file to the SendTo folder. When you release the button, choose Create Shortcut(s) Here. Now Notepad will appear in your Send To menu.

COMMAND LINE USER ADMINISTRATION.
NT provides several useful command line tools to help you manage your system. One example is the cacls.exe utility, which lets you modify Access Control Lists. It's also a great means for identifying who has rights to a particular directory. For example, from the Start, Run command line, simply type cacls C:\Temp to find out who has access to C:\Temp.

USING NT'S HARDWARE QUERY TOOL.
NT provides several useful command line tools for managing your system. One example is the Hardware Query Tool, which interrogates your hardware. To run the tool, put a blank floppy disk in drive A:, double-click the Makedisk icon in the \Support\Hqtool folder of the NT CD-ROM, then boot your computer with the disk and begin the program.

FORCE NT TO REBOOT AFTER A CRASH.
If you spend any time administering Windows NT, you're far too familiar with the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) that displays the cause of the crash and gives some information about the state of the system when it crashed. The BSOD will sit on the screen until someone reboots the system, which could be
very bad for a system that should be running 24 hours a day, like an Exchange server. You can force NT to automatically reboot after a crash by setting the value of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\CrashControl\AutoReboot to 1. Once you've changed this value, NT will reboot after writing the crash log file.

OPENING EXPLORER WITH NO EXPANDED FOLDERS.
"If you would prefer that Explorer opened with no expanded folders, open My Computer in Explorer view. To do this, right-click the desktop and choose New, Shortcut. When the Create Shortcut wizard opens, enter explorer /e,/root,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} in the Command Line entry box and click Next. Now enter the name you want to assign your new shortcut and click Finish.
When you double-click the new shortcut, Explorer will open with no folders expanded. Network Neighborhood does not appear in this view. You see only the items that appear in My Computer.
Note: It is easy to make a mistake when you enter such a long string. We suggest that you copy the name from this document and paste it into the shortcut name label.

TURNING OFF THE SPEAKER IN NT WORKSTATION 4.0.
To turn off the speaker beeps (not the sound card signals, just the speaker.), you need to do a simple Registry edit. As usual, run Notepad and enter the following exactly as shown. However, when you see BLANK LINE GOES HERE, don't type in BLANK LINE GOES HERE--just press Enter.

Choose File, Save As, and name the file SoundOff.reg. Locate a folder for the file and click Save. Double-click the new file's icon to merge it with the Registry. If you should need to turn the sound back on, make a copy of the REG file and name it SoundOn.reg. Change "Beep"="No" to "Beep"="Yes".

OPTIMIZE YOUR HARD DRIVE.
Windows 95 had a built-in disk defragmentation tool, NT doesn't. Defragmentation is a necessary and effective task in the maintenance of your system's hard drive. Defragmentation reduces access time to files and facilitates faster backups. Fortunately, you can use Diskeeper for Windows NT to defragment your drives for NT. Defragmentation reduces access time to files and facilitates faster backups. For more information, visit http://www.execsoft.com

PERFORMANCE TUNING TOOL FOR NT.
Tuners are expert systems that can make intelligent and instant decisions to improve performance on your NT systems. AutoPilot is one such tuning tool that you can use to analyse and fine-tune your NT systems. Suggestions for fixes are provided instantly, and, in some cases, fixed automatically. For more information, visit http://www.sunbelt-software.com/autoplt.htm

LOCKING OUT THE TASKBAR.
You can lock the taskbar(to keep people from changing it and other properties) with a simple Registry edit."
We created a REG file that will take care of this change for you. To reproduce the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following information. Where you see the words BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter to enter a blank line. Do not type in BLANK LINE GOES HERE.

Name this one Unlock.reg and use it to gain access to the right-click menu again.

REINSTALLING COMMAND.COM.
If you delete Command.com in the \Winnt\System32 folder, insert the Windows NT Workstation 4.0 installation CD into the drive and enter expand d:\i386\command.co_ %systemroot%\system32\command.com at the Command Prompt to copy a new Command.com to the system. This assumes your CD-ROM drive is D:. If yours is not, just substitute the appropriate drive letter.

GETTING RID OF FINDFAST,
You can remove FindFast from your Start Up folder, but this won't quite finish the job. To do it right, click Start, Settings, Control Panel. When Control Panel opens, double-click the FindFast icon. In FindFast, click an entry and choose Index, Delete Index. Repeat the process for each of your index listings. After you have deleted all the index listings, choose Index, Close, Stop. Finally, right-click Start and choose Open. Double-click Programs and then double-click Start Up. Delete the FindFast entry and restart your computer.

SERVICE PACK QUERY.
Having a tough time keeping up with what service packs and fixes you've applied to your NT systems? Service Pack Query Tool (SPQuery) enables you to determine not only which service pack you've installed, but also what fixes you've already applied. Version 2.0 shows you this information on all your machines in all domains. The SPQuery single machine license allows the query of all of the machines on the network and generates a full report. As an administrator, you can use this information to keep track of all configuration data on the networked machines. For more info, visit http://www.mtesoft.com/spquery3.html

VIEWING FAT 32 AND NTFS PARTITIONS.
On any given computer, you cannot access a FAT32 partition from Windows NT Workstation 4.0. Also, on that same computer, you can't see the NTFS partition when running Windows 95/98.
It's different when you use a network. Let's say you have one computer running Windows 98, networked with another computer running Windows NT Workstation 4.0. You can work with files over the network even if you use FAT32 on the Windows machine and NTFS on the NT 4.0 Workstation machine. But suppose your Windows 98 computer can dual-boot and therefore has an NTFS partition. You will not see that partition on either computer. You can't see it because Windows 98 doesn't recognise NTFS.

GRAPHICAL MONITORING TOOL.
Monitoring the performance and stability of your NT systems is vital in ensuring that your system is running at its best and that it will be ready when you need it. NTManage combines graphical fault and performance monitoring with a rules-based notification and fault management system to help you do that. Though designed for the Windows NT platform, NTManage's flexible SNMP interface allows monitoring and management of all kinds of TCP/IP- and SNMP-enabled devices. For more info, visit http://www.lanware.net/products/ntmanage/overview.asp

MONITORING EVENTS AND SERVICES.
You have a lot of activity to track and monitor on your NT system to keep it finely tuned and running at its best. System Sentinel is a suite of network services dedicated to the real-time monitoring, notification, and execution of corrective action related to Windows NT events, TCP/IP protocol, and system services. The product provides advanced monitoring through event filtering, caching, and routing of events. Send notification to media such as alphanumeric pagers, e-mail, ODBC databases, and Web servers. Scripts can execute to take corrective action. For more info, visit http://www.ntpsoftware.com

WORKING WITH MACS.
If you work in a mixed-desktop environment of NT, Windows, and Mac systems, you may need to format, read, and write Mac-formatted disks on your non-Mac systems. One way to do this is using a tool such as Mac-in-DOS. This utility enables PC users to read, write, and format Macintosh disks from PC drives. It includes support for network, Jaz, Syquest, Bernoulli, 3.5 disk, CD-ROM, and other drives. For more info, visit http://www.softwareshelf.com/mid.htm

BAD FILE ON INSTALL?
If you use repair disk to reconstruct a Windows NT Workstation 4.0 installation you may get a message that riched20.dll wasn't copied. This can happen when you upgrade or when you repair an installation if you have installed Microsoft Office. It isn't anything to worry about. What happens is that Microsoft Office installs a file named riched20.dll, and Windows NT Workstation 4.0 also installs the same file to support WordPad. Just ignore the message and continue with your repair.

PUT INTERNET EXPLORER ICON BACK ON YOUR DESKTOP.
To have the original icon, right-click your desktop and choose New, Folder. Name the folder Internet Explorer.{FBF23B42-E3F0-101B-8488-00AA003E56F8} and press Enter. We suggest that you copy the name, then paste it into your new folder's name box.

PRINTING A WINMSD REPORT.
You can get WinMsd to print a full report if you type winmsd /p at the Command Prompt. Want WinMsd to print a report without opening the program from Windows NT, perhaps by clicking its icon or a shortcut? Yes, you can assign switches to Windows NT programs without going to the Command Prompt. Just run Windows NT Explorer and go to \Winnt\System32. Locate the winmsd.exe icon and use the right mouse button to drag it to the desktop. When the menu appears, choose Create Shortcut(s) Here. Now right-click your new shortcut and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Shortcut tab. To the end of the existing line in the Target entry box, add /p
This should leave you with something very similar to C:\WINNT\system32\Winmsd.exe /p in the entry box. Click OK to close the dialog box and store your new settings. When you double-click the WinMsd shortcut, you'll get your printout without ever seeing WinMsd open.

READING FAT32 PARTITIONS IN WINDOWS NT WORKSTATION 4.0.
There is software that will allow you to use the FAT32 partition. Go to http://www.pcworld.com/fileworld/file_description/0,1458,6150,00.html and download fat32.exe. FAT32 is a free utility that will allow you to read and copy files in a FAT32 partition on a Windows NT Workstation 4.0 dual-boot system. If you need to write to a FAT32 partition as well. You can purchase a full read/write version of the utility.

EXPANDING THE SERVICE PACK FILES.
To copy the SP6 CD-ROM files to your hard disk (providing you have WinZip installed on your system) run Windows NT Explorer and creating a folder for the files.
Next, right-click SP6I386.exe and choose Extract To. WinZip will open and ask you to select the folder you want to use. Identify the folder you just created--the files will unzip and you can run Upgrade from there.

RESET YOUR SYSTEM CLOCK.
If you have a computer with an unreliable clock, you can use your LAN to correct it. At the command prompt, type NET TIME \\computername /SET /YES This sets the clock on your computer to the same time as the one on the server.

ALLOCATING DISKS AND CD-ROMS DURING LOGON.
By default, Microsoft Windows NT lets any program access files on disks and CD-ROMs. In a highly secure, multiuser environment, you might want to let only the person logged on interactively access those devices. An interactive user can write sensitive information to these drives, confident that no other user or program can see or modify that data. When you operate in this mode, the disks and/or CD-ROMs on your system are allocated to a user as part of the interactive logon process.
Because these devices are automatically freed for general use or for reallocation when that user logs off, you must remove sensitive data from the disk or CD-ROM drives before logging off.
To allocate disks during logon, use the Registry Editor to create or assign the following Registry key value:
Hive:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE
Key:   \Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Name:  AllocateFloppies
Type:  REG_SZ
Value: 1

To allocate CD-ROMs during logon, use the Registry Editor to create or assign the following Registry key value:
Hive:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE
Key:   \Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Name:  AllocateCDRoms
Type:  REG_SZ
Value: 1

If the value does not exist or is set to any other value, disks or CD- ROM devices will be available on the system for all processes to use. The value you set will take effect at the next logon. If a user is already logged on when this value is set, it will have no effect for that log on session. For the device(s) to be allocated, the user must log off and log on again.
Note: NT lets all users access, read, and write to any tape in the drive. In general, this access is not a concern because only one user at a time is interactively logged on. However, in rare instances, a program that a user starts can continue to run after the user logs off.
When another user logs on and puts a tape in the tape drive, the first program can transfer what might be sensitive data from the first tape to the second tape. If this is a concern, restart the computer before using the tape drive.

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