Basic Tips for installing Windows 95 - Phil98: ---------------------------------------------- $fcc 1. Go into your PC's bios-setup and ensure "PnP (plug and play) aware bios" is active if the option is available. 2. Remove anything non-essential EG: modem & Soundcard. Obviously you need the mouse, keyboard and CDROM installed - If possible, connect your CDROM drive as the master on the secondary IDE connector rather than as a slave on the primary - its not essential though. 3. Partition and format harddrive and install DOS - IE: Just boot from DOS disk 1 and follow prompts as normal. (Note: DOS will only allow you to create partitions of 2 Gig max. If you have a bigger drive, either add secondary DOS partitions with Fdisk or use some Windows 95 partition software to create bigger partitions later). Reboot and install your CDROM DOS drivers as per the instructions that came with it. 4. Reboot and insert Windows 95 CD, run setup.exe from the CDROM. Follow prompts, choose "express" installation for minimal hassle or "custom" if you want to chose the components to install (You can add things you omit later if you need them). Follow the prompts as Win95 installs (much noise from the harddrive is normal during which). NOTE: You'll be asked at one stage for a blank floppy disk to make a "Win 95 startup disk". Installation should take about 30 minutes. 5. Once Win95 has installed and is working ok, it may be a good idea to set the monitor, colour and display resolutions first. Just click on the display icon from "control panel" (from the setting option on the Start menu) and click the "settings" tab. If you click on the "advanced properties" box then the monitor tab, you can ensure the correct monitor selection has been made. If in any doubt, click Standard SVGA 640x400, SVGA800*600 etc depending on the maximum resolution you need. Once the monitor type has been set you can choose the colour/resolution back in the settings tab. High colour (16bit) 800x600 with large fonts is normally the comfortable limit on 14" monitors. 6. Shut down (from start menu) and power off. Install ONE peripheral (internal stuff first). Boot up - the newly installed device should be found by Win95 - it may ask for a driver disk, if you have it click "Have disk" and tell it where to look, else let it search its own database. (Obviously its a good idea to scan through the manual that came with the peripheral for exact installation precedures). Close down, reboot and test the installed device. (Check for problems with device manager ("My computer" then the "system" icon). All your installed devices should be listed. Yellow triangles next to device names indicate problems. Repeat this "poweroff, install hardware,boot,install driver,reboot,test" process for all other peripherals. 7. Remove any icons from the desktop you dont want by dragging them into the recycle bin and install your software. (Installing the microsoft "Plus" pack will improve the look of your desktop no end). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- $af0Trouble Shooting: ----------------- Naturally, always close windows95 down properly via the shutdown menu if possible (and remember to if in win95 DOS) - youre asking for trouble if you just power off... If you believe something is causing windows95 to mis-behave you can boot in a basic-mode where no device drivers are loaded: "Safe mode". To do this hold the F8 key down before the "Starting Windows95" message appears on boot. A menu will appear - choose "windows 95 safe mode" to boot with very basic settings (Note: The display will probably look rough as its using the most basic display driver). Once loaded you can tinker with your software and change the settings to see if the problem is still there. When you close down and reboot, Win95 will load back normally. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- $fb9 Windows 95 and "Real Mode DOS" ------------------------------ Windows 95 has its own 32bit multitasking long-filename compatible version of DOS, (click on MS_DOS prompt from the programs menu). This is not "REAL MODE DOS" and some programs written for REAL dos will perform badly or even crash the system. To get to REAL MODE DOS, hold down the F8 key as the computer boots (just before "Starting Windows 95" appears). At the menu, choose "DOS prompt only" to go to the REAL MODE DOS prompt. (Do not select "Load previous version of DOS"!!) Note: REAL MODE DOS programs may require drivers for peripherals to work (EG: a soundcard driver). Check your manuals for the proceedure for setting up the DOS drivers - you may even be asked if you want to set it up whilst installing the 32bit win95 drivers. Having a DOS driver running (as executed from Autoexec.bat as the machine boots) before Windows 95 boots CAN cause problems - EG: The resource Win95 is looking for may be tied up by the DOS driver). One common problem often shows up by clicking the "system performance" tab (under "system" in device manager). It should read "Your system is optimized for maximum performance". If there is a message concerning REAL MODE drivers, it may a DOS based driver (EG:CDROM) causing trouble or is just a bit slow. It can be cured just REMMING out the (CDROM) driver lines in config.sys and Autoexec.bat - Win95 should then install its own driver when you next reboot (Note that the device will then be unavailable in REAL MODE DOS, however). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- $fffend