Some of the wrinkles in Windows 95/NT can be ironed out. (I still can't bring myself to install the dreaded Win 98.) Here are some of my favorite smoothies.

I often need to reuse a block of text (an address, phone number, data or some boilerplate text). An easy way to have these instantly available: highlight the text in a document, then click and drag it to the desktop. A "scrap" icon appears. Click and drag the scrap to the place you want to insert it.

Sometimes your mouse freezes (you've never cleaned it, right?), though the system remains responsive otherwise. There are alternatives. You can move the cursor without the mouse by turning on MouseKeys. While your mouse is operative double-click Accessibility Options in Control Panel, click the mouse tab, then click Use MouseKeys.

Newer keyboards have a key with the Windows flag on it. Hold it down and: press E to open Explorer; Tab, then Enter to switch between applications shown in the taskbar; F to open the Find dialog; R to open the Run dialog; press the Pause key to open System Properties.

I fixed my sluggish keyboard by double-clicking Keyboard in Control Panel, and trying different settings of the Repeat Rate slider. (Test in the box below it.)

You're suffering from a lack of Windows resources or some other gotcha, and you want to do a shutdown, but the only thing that works is the on/off switch? Hold down Ctrl and press Esc to bring up the Start menu, then press U for shutdown.

You need to access your floppy drive frequently, and you're tired of having to open My Computer to get to it? Open it one last time and drag the floppy (or any other drive) icon to the desktop. When you're warned that it can't be copied select Create Shortcut.

Forgot to create an emergency startup disk? Double-click Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel, then click the Startup Disk tab.

The command prompt (DOS window) does many things faster than Windows. But occasionally a visual display of a directory (folder) is handy even there. At the prompt, type "START .", or "START .." and an open folder of that directory appears. You can drag and drop filenames from Explorer onto the DOS prompt.

To quickly display a current calendar (or to change the system date/time) double-click the time in the taskbar tray.

One of the more annoying things in Win 9x (and NT as well) is the default that hides the three-letter file extensions. Extensions like .exe or .zip or .txt tell at a glance whether a file is an executable program, a compressed file, or a text file. Fix Microsoft's design flaw: open My Computer, select View, then Options. Uncheck the "Hide MS-DOS file extensions" option, click Apply, then OK.

Microsoft wants to "protect" us from many system files, so they are hidden. To hell with MS: on that same Options/View menu choose "Show all files".

Windows enjoys frustrating us by making programs stop responding. Rather than the three-finger salute (Ctrl-Alt-Del), bring up the Task Manager to end the task by right-clicking the Taskbar.

To restart Windows 95 without rebooting: in the Shut Down window select Restart and hold down the Shift key while clicking Yes.

Happy ironing!

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