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| Registry Backup Revisited: To
backup up the registry just click Start and then Run and type in
"scanregw" without the quotation marks. Click OK and Windows 98 will
scan the registry and then it will ask you if you want to backup the
registry. Simply select Yes and your registry will be backed up. Remember that Windows only makes a registry backup once a day. So, if add software or hardware to you computer, run the Registry backup. That way you will always have an up-to-date registry. If anything goes wrong, you can always restore the registry even if windows refuses to start. To restore the registry, if the computer starts in windows, just click Start, Shutdown and select Restart in MS-DOS Mode. The computer will restart in DOS. When you see the C:\> prompt, type scanreg /restore and you will be given a selection list of backed up registries. Select the latest successful startup and your registry will be restored and your computer will then run properly when you restart it in Windows. If your computer will not start in Windows, use your Windows Startup Disk to boot up the computer and then use the restore registry instructions above to restore the registry. If you do not have a startup disk, make one now by clicking Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add New Software and then select the startup disk option. It is essential to have a startup disk for emergency use. Defragmenting Your Hard Drive: This is an important maintenance procedure for keeping you computer running efficiently. It is one of several preventive measures that many computer owners overlook. Most computer users should defragment their hard drives at least once a month. In you are an active computer user, that should be increased to once every two weeks. For those of you that spend many hours a day on your computer, defraging once a week is you best bet. As you use your computer, files are moved back and forth from your hard drive to the RAM (Random Access Memory). As this happens, files are often broken up into many pieces and placed in various clusters on your hard drive. After long use, pieces of files can be spread throughout your hard drive. This creates delays as your computer searches to compile all the pieces for the file you need. Defragmenting finds these pieces and relocates them into contiguous clusters making them easier to find and open. This means your computer will work less and much faster. If you do this regularly, it won't take much time to complete. However, if you haven't done it for a long time, or have never done it, it may take an hour or two to put things back in order. It is not necessary to watch the computer while this is going on. I suggest that you wait till you are ready to close down your computer for the day and then defrag and just let your computer do it. To set up defragmentation, click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools and Disk Defragmenter. This will open the program. If you have other drives, they may also be highlighted but normally only the C drive is marked. Just start the process and then you can leave the computer and come back in a couple of hours or the next morning. You can turn off your monitor or simply let the screen saver come on. Either way, the defragmenting will be completed automatically. |
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