The first question on everyone's mind who is using
95 is whether to upgrade their system to Windows 98.
As you know there is quit an argument going on about
this subject. I will pose the answer as a series of
questions. If you answer most of them with a yes, then
you should upgrade.
The underlined text that follows are not links. It is done to bring attention to file names.
If you are using the original Win 95 you should
download Windows Service Pack 1 and put it on your system.
It is important that you do the Service Pack first. The
other update rely on that being on your computer and
installed.
Next if you are using Microsoft Exchange you want to download and install it. It is the file named; exupdusa.exe
If you are using passwords on your system, download and install; mspwlpd2.exe
To get a better dial up connection you need to
download wsockupd.exe and msisdn.exe I know it may
sound strange
that downloading and installing something for ISDN to
a system that does not have an ISDN connection but on
my system it did seem to make quit a bit of difference
in my connection.
There is one other thing you need to do to get
a better dial up connection. You need to find a program for changing
the MTU setting to 576. The change helps in that
it decreases the packet size that your connection will accept.
The original setting is for a large packet size which
is fine if you are on a LAN (Local Area Network) which
are generally much faster than a dial up. Check my links
page for good places to look for shareware and
freeware.
There are many more that you can read through the description and decide if it is worth your time to get.
The next two thing you can do to help keep Win
95 running its best is to do Scan Disk and Defrag on a regular
schedule. This is very important if you test a lot of
shareware programs and delete them. As a drive becomes
fragmented it take longer for your operating system to
find all the files it needs for your different programs as
they can be scattered all over you disk drive. If you
added the Microsoft Plus program, it came with a handy
program; Systems Manager that lets you schedule
when to run the maintenance programs. The only problem
with that is you have to be sure you system is running
at the scheduled time.
Now comes the part that will probably take the
most time. Nearly everything that you add to your system needs
small programs called drivers. What you have to do is
locate all the manufacturers Web sites, if they have one,
and try and locate the latest drivers for your system.
This calls for becoming familiar with search engines on
the Web. After you find one, be sure to bookmark it in
your favorite browser so you can check every few
months to see if they have come out with new drivers.
Software can be a problem with Win 95. Though it
was suppose to run older programs from both Windows 3.X and
DOS many of them either run poorly or not at all. With
some DOS programs you could do a pfi file for them by right
clicking on the .exe file, going to the properties,
Advanced
and write your own Autoexec and config file for that program
but this was beyond many peoples computer skills. If
you were luck and had registered you software the help desk might
be able to walk you through and get it to work. With
other programs there was no hope. By this time most people who
are still using Win 95 have upgraded to software written
for that OS.
If by chance you are using Win 95 and still having
problems feel free to email me at the address below. I'll get into the
books
and magazine articles I have and see if we can find a
fix or a work around.
If I get questions I will start a FAQ page for
Win 95, that way any answers given will be available to anyone that may
have
the same problem. Let me know if you want you name used
as the person who asked the question.
Email me at this Address.