Do you have lots of data files scattered all over your system? Take the time to arrange them into one central data folder. That way, you'll know where everything is at a moment's notice; and even better, backups become a breeze.
Start by creating a new folder on your hard drive. (Alternatively, you may want to partition your drive, making one virtual drive a "Data" drive.) Name the folder or drive something appropriate, such as "Data" or "My Data." Within this folder or drive, create subfolders that correspond to the types of data you have on your system. For example, you might create "Home," "Business," and "Personal" folders; and then within these three, you might create a series of folders corresponding to the various types of home, business, and personal data.Once you've set up your data "storage area (the hierarchy of folders), the rest is just a matter of moving the data from various locations on your system into the appropriate folders. It takes a little time, but the end result is worth it: The next time you need to back up all your data files, just select your main data folder and be through with it. All those precious files are right in the same place.
Of course, moving all your data files will render anything that points to the data files at their old locations--shortcuts, items in the Documents list, and the files listed at the bottom of File menus (within your applications)--useless. But that doesn't mean you can't get everything back in sync again.
As far as shortcuts are concerned, you can give Windows a chance to find the file that a shortcut points to in its new location (when you click one, it'll try to find it), but it's probably quicker just to delete the old shortcuts and set up new ones.
Clear your Documents list and start over again. It'll fill up again in no time. (To clear the list, select Start, Settings, select the Start Menu Programs tab, click the Clear button, and click OK.)
As for the files listed at the bottom of an application's File menus, just forget them and use the File, Open dialog box for a day or two. You'll have new items on those menus in no time.
Aren't these slight inconveniences a small price to pay for such great organization?
A while back we ran a tip called "The Windows 95 Swap Meet," which referred you to an article in Microsoft's Knowledge Base for instructions on copying Windows 95 to another hard drive. A number of you wrote in with third-party software suggestions for facilitating this process.
The most straightforward of these programs is PowerQuest's DriveCopy ($29.95). In just a few simple steps, it copies everything from the old drive to a new one. If you prefer a fuller-featured program, try Partition Magic ($54.95 after a $15 rebate), also from PowerQuest. For more information, point your Web browser to
http://www.powerquest.com/product/dc/index.html
(for DriveCopy)
or
http://www.powerquest.com/product/pm/index.html
(for Partition Magic)
We recently heard from a Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 user who was having problems with disk space. IE 4 wasn't the cause of the entire problem, but it was making enough difference to be worth changing. To check your disk usage, choose View, Internet Options and click the General tab. Click Settings and see how much disk space is allotted to temporary files--in this case, we found that she had set hers to 20 percent. This is much too high, so we set it back to 1 percent.
If you find you need to make a change in your allotted disk space, slide the pointer to the percentage you think you need. The more space, the more temporary files get saved. If you don't need a lot of temporary files, move the pointer all the way to the left. When finished, click OK, and then back in Internet Options, click OK again.