Windows® 95 Secrets® [Paperback]

Brian Livingston (Author), Davis Straub (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0764530704 | ISBN-13: 978-0764530708 | Publication Date: June 4, 1997 | Edition: 4th

Windows^® 95 secrets^® 4th Edition "You can't get the beast to run? Does the Registry need CPR? … Don't boot up without Windows 95 Secrets." — Robert Luhn, Computer Currents Now in its fourth edition, the internationally acclaimed Windows 95 Secrets contains hundreds of invaluable inside techniques for optimizing your operating system. Experts Brian Livingston and Davis Straub have spent more than three years taking apart Windows 95. With precise and detailed instructions, they reveal the many undocumented features and time-saving shortcuts that will help you realize the promise of Windows 95 — from installing and configuring software to connecting to the Internet and networking. Optimize your Windows 95 performance!

• Use shortcuts to open your system and files
• Customize your startup, desktop settings, and file management system
• Edit the Registry to change underlying parameters
• Run and optimize your DOS applications
• Install new plug-and-play devices without conflicting with your existing peripherals
• Create briefcases to edit and update files on both your desktop and your laptop
• Take full advantage of Windows' built-in dial-up networking capabilities
• Configure your computer as a networking client
• Connect to the Internet with Internet Explorer

Try out Livingston's and Straub's top 275+ picks of high-performance freeware and shareware for Windows 95 Internet and Web Publishing Tools

• Communication Tools
• Mail Clients and Utilities
• Dial-up Networking Tools
• Remote Computing Tools
• FTP Clients
• Internet Suites
• Web Browsing and Authoring Tools
• HTML Editors
• Networking Tools

Productivity Tools and Utilities

• Automation Tools
• File Managers and Compression Tools
• Memory and Benchmarking Tools
• Virus Protection Software
• Calendar and Time Management Programs
• Personal Finance Managers
• Database Managers
• Graphics and Text Editing Tools
• Programming Tools

Multimedia, Games, and More …

• MS Power Toys
• Desktop Enhancements
• Onscreen Notes and Stickies
• Presentations and Slide Shows
• Video and Animation Tools
• T-shirt Designs
• Exercise Programs

Shareware programs are fully functional, free trial versions of copyrighted programs. If you like particular programs, register with their authors for a nominal fee and receive licenses, enhanced versions, and technical support. Freeware programs are free, copyrighted games, applications, and utilities. You can copy them to as many PCs as you like—free—but they have no technical support.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you've ever installed Windows 95, reinstalled Windows 95, wished you had never installed Windows 95, or are stalled just at the thought of Windows 95, you need this book on your shelf. Windows 95 Secrets, Fourth Edition, is the kind of reference book that operating systems should ship with. Since it may be awhile until that day comes, it's good to know that someone is publishing the information.

The authors fill each chapter with plenty of tips and tricks that range from the cosmetic to the utilitarian. You'll discover how to configure every facet of the Windows 95 interface, including those New Age startup and shutdown graphics. You'll also learn many keystroke and mouse tricks to zipping around the desktop and browsing the hard drive more efficiently.

This book brings the hazy world of the Registry to light with clear guides to editing and managing the files. Windows 95 Secrets lists and explains the available Windows 95 upgrades, expansion packs, and "unofficial" utilities, such as Power Toys, right up front, so you can make sure you're running the latest version with all of the coolest and most useful gadgets.

Previews of Internet Explorer 4.0 shell integration features pepper the entire volume. Windows 95 Secrets also reports on the functionality you can expect when the operating system and the Web browser collide. However, the author marks the juiciest tidbits with icons that indicate tips, undocumented features, and secrets. These tidbits are excellent skimming aids if you want to go straight to the good stuff.

About the Author

About the Authors Brian Livingston is the author of IDG Books Worldwide's bestselling Windows^® 3.1 Secrets^®, MORE Windows^® 3.1 Secrets^®, and coauthor of Windows^® 95 Secrets^®, 3rd Edition, Windows^® 95 Secrets^®, Gold, and Windows^® Gizmos^®. His books have been published in more than 20 languages. Mr. Livingston is also a contributing editor of InfoWorld and Windows Sources magazines. Davis Straub, coauthor of Windows^® 95 Secrets^®, 3rd Edition and Windows^® 95 Secrets^®, Gold, has written over 200 magazine articles. Former president of Generic Software, developer of Generic CADD, Mr. Straub is currently a multimedia software developer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1126 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 4th edition (June 4, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764530704
• ISBN-13: 978-0764530708
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,710,115 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the one Computer Book, you won't regret purchasing!, July 20, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Windows® 95 Secrets® (Paperback)

I received my copy of Windows 95 Secrets 4th Edition a couple of weeks back, and already I'm seeing the benefits. Brian Livingston & Davis Straub get really detailed in this edition. My colleagues and I feel like there isn't a part of Windows 95 that we don't know about! If this is the one computer book you ever buy, you definitely won't regret it

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Windows 95 Secrets towers above the competition., January 14, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Windows(r) 95 SECRETS(r) (Paperback)

Getting Deeper and Deeper Into Microsoft Windows 95

By Edward Mendelson

If you want to change Windows 95's new interface and file system so that the generic "My Computer" feels more like your own computer, the one indispensable guide is Brian Livingston and Davis Straub's Windows 95 Secrets.

Unlike most Windows books, this one doesn't make you pay for a rewrite of Microsoft's help files. Instead it reveals undocumented and underdocumented techniques for changing almost anything in the Windows environment. Some of the simpler tips tell you how to customize the list of SendTo and New... items on the right-click menu. Others give you the details you need to use the new wildcard options in Explorer and explain that hotkey choices only work for shortcuts that you place on the Start menu.

The best tips--including the ones you won't learn from Microsoft--send you to the Registry Editor to add or modify entries. This isn't a job for the fainthearted, but if you have the courage, you can stop Windows' distracting and time-wasting habit of making application windows jump visibly from the taskbar to the screen and back again. You can add the Control Panel, Dial-Up Networking, and Printers to your Start menu. Best of all, you can change Windows' annoying habit of putting a tilde and the numeral 1 in the old-style 8.3 filenames that it automatically creates when you use a new-style long filename.

Livingston and Straub explore the depths of the Windows memory management and DOS support. They even tell you when to ignore the advice you get from Windows itself. When Windows displays an error message telling you to increase the Files setting in CONFIG.SYS, they tell you to make a change in SYSTEM.INI instead.

Like most Windows books, Windows 95 Secrets comes with a CD-ROM of shareware and freeware, most of it worthless, but Livingston and Straub one-up the competition by providing a one-stop installation program for virtually all the programs on the disk. If you don't like the one you just installed,

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource., July 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Windows® 95 Secrets® (Paperback)

This was a great book - if I had just one book about Win 95, this would be it.