Essay/Term paper: Speeding up windows 95

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Internet

SPEEDING UP WINDOWS 95

Windows 95 with certain minor alterations and software upgrades can operate at a
faster more efficient speed. With this Windows 95 tutorial, all the things you
do now will be easier and faster, and what you always wanted to know is now here
for you to learn. This tutorial will provide you with insightful instructional
and informative tips about free programs such as TweakUI, and day to day
maintenance OS needs. First, it is very important that you run Windows 95 with
at least a high-end 486 (Pentium recommended), 8 megs of ram(adding more ram
will increase overall performance), and at least 1 meg of video memory. Most of
the following tips included here are for speedy application processes while
others simply rewrites or bug fixes. One advantage Windows 95 has over its
competitors is the user interface feature that comes built in with the operating
system. User interface is a program within Windows 95 that allows customization
of certain interface settings based on personal preference. About a year ago
Microsoft released a small program called TweakUI that actually adds more
flexibility and functionality to the already current user-friendly interface.
TweakUI is actually a rewrite (bug fix) program that edits certain data files
from the Windows 95 registry. With TweakUI running on your machine you can
disable the following options which in turn will speed up your access time:
windows animation, reboot start up, GUI interface, and last log on settings.
TweakUI also adds a few nifty extras such as: smooth scroll, mouse enhancement,
instant CD-ROM data load, and much more. Surprisingly enough TweakUI is offered
free of charge to any WWW user and can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com or
http://www.tucows.com. TweakUI is a definite must for any Windows 95 user
looking to benefit the most from their home computer. No can argue that Windows
95 is the cleanest and most efficiently set up OS around. In fact, Windows 95 is
by far the messiest OS to ever hit the market this decade. When compared to
operating systems such as MacOS, OS2Warp, and Windows NT, Windows 95 finishes in
dead last. This is due mainly to the fact that when installing or uninstalling a
program in the Windows 95 environment, the program manager scatters files all
over different parts of the file system (fixed disk directory). These scattered
bits of files are often called leftovers (which is to be taken by definition of)
which if left on your drive, cause extreme slow downs when you CPU is at work.
Usually leftovers can be found in your c:/windows, c:/windows/system, or
c:/windows/temp. The suffixed name for leftovers is as follows txt, old, log,
***,..., and tmp. Deletion of file leftovers make for faster access time and
more hard disk space available. We've already seen several simple but effective
ways to increase performance in the Windows 95 environment, but of all the most
important is, disk defragmentation. Disk fragmentation is the breaking up of
different access files all relative to certain programs installed on your fixed
disk drive. Think of your fixed disk drive as a big completed jigsaw puzzle,
which of moved, will break apart into several sub-puzzles. The same holds true
for your fixed disk. When a program is installed it takes up the amount of disk
space it needs to function correctly (usually the last available part of your
drive). On the contrary, when a program is uninstalled it creates a space or
hole on your fixed disk relative to where the program was before. Taking the
same concept and applying it in terms of the jigsaw puzzle, we can clearly see
what our fixed drive would physically look like. This is where disk
defragmentation comes into play. It moves the rest of the currently installed
programs on your drive from their current position to the position where the
space is. Speed comes into play due to the fact that if you drive has never been
defragmented, your CPU probably has to search in different areas of your
physical drive for certain start up files. Disk Defragmentation comes with every
version of Windows 95 and can usually be found by clicking the taskbar and
highlighting the following: programs/accessories/system tools/disk defragmenter.
Overall defragmentation increases performance by about 30 percent and make for a
neater set up system. As discussed earlier, the addition of extra ram, faster
processor, and a good video card make up a great conventional way of boosting
the level of your performance, unfortunately the expense is never a pretty to
hear. If you currently have the minimum required setup (high-end 486, 8 megs of
ram, 1 meg of video memory), you should see some good effective results from
this tutorial. However, if your system falls short of the minimum requirements,
I would definitely recommend a hardware upgrade or the purchase of a newer more
up to date machine.