QUESTION: We’ve just bought brand-new computers with Windows 98, second edition. We assumed because it was the second edition and not the first we would have fewer problems. Every so often, our computers don’t finish the shutdown process. Is it something we’re doing wrong? Do you have any idea what’s going on?

ANSWER: The same thing happened to me so I understand your frustration. I am sure you already know that to properly shut down a Windows 95 or Windows 98 computer, you click on the Start button in the lower left corner of the screen, choose Shut Down and wait for Windows to close. On older Windows 95 computers, it displayed a message reading “It is safe to turn off your computer.” On later versions of Windows 95 and on Windows 98 computers, it is supposed to shut down completely. With the second edition, however, many people often get stuck at the “Please wait while your computer shuts down” screen or they may see a blank screen with a blinking cursor.

I recently upgraded my desktop computer from a Pentium 200 to a Pentium PIII 550 with Windows 98, second edition. Every so often, with no apparent pattern, when I shut down, it seemed to stay on the shut down screen forever and not shut down. While calling Dell Corporation’s technical support on another issue, I casually mentioned this problem to the technician. Before I finished explaining, he stopped me and offered the solution.

There is a patch to Windows 98, second edition on the Microsoft web site, www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/contents/
WUrecommended/S_WUfeatured/WIN98SE/Default.asp.

Be sure when typing in the web site you enter it exactly as it appears including the underline, uppercase and lowercase letters and forward slashes. If you are interested in more details about the problem and how to repair it, you might want to look at the Microsoft Corp. knowledge base document titled “How to Troubleshoot Windows 98 Second Edition Shutdown Problems,” dated Oct. 7, 1999 (Article ID: Q238096 in the Microsoft knowledge base, http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q238/0/96.asp). The article provides almost five pages of suggestions before it mentions the availability of the patch. There is a similar article, “How to Troubleshoot Windows 95 Shutdown Problems,” (Article ID: Q145926, http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q145/9/26.asp) which describes steps to take if you are having similar problems with Windows 95. Both articles offer a technical explanation of the procedures that Windows goes through when a command to shut down is issued.

Why the slow down?

There are some interesting things about Windows 95 and 98 worth understanding. Some background about how MS-DOS handled things also will clarify what’s going on since there still are many remnants of DOS behind the scenes of both Windows 95 and Windows 98. Under DOS, computers started up faster and were quicker to shut down. On startup, every computer, regardless of the operating system, goes through a self-check of the hardware. After the hardware has been checked, the operating system takes over. DOS computers worked with two basic startup files: AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS.

The AUTOEXEC.BAT file was used primarily to set file locations for programs by use of a Path statement. That statement would allow DOS to start programs whose paths were known to it without requiring the user to change to that directory before issuing the command to begin that program. The AUTOEXEC.BAT also was the place where you could change the C> prompt to a more useful one that showed the current path such as c:\wp51>.

The CONFIG.SYS file contained the settings to control the DOS environment. If you looked at the components of a typical CONFIG.SYS file on a DOS computer, you would find a FILES statement, a BUFFERS statement and possibly some DEVICE statements. This was somewhat dependent on what programs you ran. The FILES and BUFFERS determined the memory available behind the scenes for your applications to run while the devices handled things like CD-ROM drives and other peripherals.

Many Windows 95 and Windows 98 computers still have AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files lurking behind the scenes. In Windows, they serve a slightly different purpose. They are no longer needed to set paths but they can set your virus protection software to check critical startup files prior to loading Windows and locate the drive letter for your CD-ROM drive in case you need to reinstall Windows. They also work in the background for older DOS or early Windows programs running under Windows 95 or 98.

When people change from DOS to Windows, as many law firms have in the last year, they wonder why it takes Windows so long to start and shut down. Understanding what is going on behind the scenes might remove some of the frustration the next time you are waiting for your desktop to load. I always found the “desktop” analogy humorous because, unlike my computer-based Windows desktop, my real desktop doesn’t require me to wait for it to load each day. I simply sit down at my desk and I am ready to work.

Behind the scenes

So what exactly are Windows 95 and Windows 98 doing when we see their logo? First, it still does the system checks that DOS did such as verifying the date and time, checking the memory chips and doing the configurations instructed by the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. Once it has completed those steps, Windows verifies all of the devices and looks for any new ones that might have been added or removed since the last time it was started. For example, if you purchase a portable tape backup device or attach a new printer while the computer is turned off, the next time you start the computer, Windows will identify it as new hardware and present a wizard to help install the new device. In addition, Windows verifies that all of the equipment and drivers it used the last session are still working and available.

The additional start up time for Windows can be even longer if you are on a network or working on a computer that has a tape backup unit. In a network environment, Windows has a few more items to check as it starts up. It must determine that the network card is present and functioning and must locate the network drives and connect to them as instructed in either a login script in the network software or through drive mappings within Windows itself. A login script is a series of instructions that tell your computer to see the network server and its drives as certain letters and give the user specific permissions depending on whose user name and password has been logged in. Each computer, including servers, has at least a “C” drive. Servers may even have several physical drives which would be designated as “D,” “E,” and so on. A CD-ROM drive is usually the last consecutive letter for the drives. Drive mappings are commands that tell your computer to see drives on the server as specific letters rather than their original letters. Depending on your system and needs, you can even have parts of a drive with a different letter designation. These are usually referred to as “virtual drives,” since they aren’t really separate hard disks inside the server.

At this time, there are three basic flavors of networks in use: Novell NetWare operating system, Microsoft Windows NT operating system and “peer-to-peer” networks using either Windows 95 or Windows 98 as the network software as well as the desktop operating system. A peer-to-peer network differs from a “dedicated server” style network in that the server can perform double duty by also being someone’s desktop computer. Drive mappings are critical in a peer-to-peer system. While you can make one computer the server to store the firm’s word processing documents, you can assign a different one for the billing database or case management systems’ data. It’s generally best to set up one computer as a “designated server.” The person who works at that computer would still see the drives as C, D and so on. Over the years, I have visited many offices that either set up their own peer-to-peer networks or had a technician assist the firms. However, I have rarely seen them set up properly; that is, with all of the computers mapped to see the data drives with the same drive letters. While you can function with Joe seeing his Word documents as G:\worddocs while Mary sees them as F:\worddocs, problems will multiply when you are using programs for billing and case management that require a common data directory.

Map your drives

In addition to mapping network drives from the workstations, the person who sets up your system can use a “SUBST” command on the “designated server” to substitute the common drive letter for the actual location on their workstation. For example, in my office, my desktop computer is our firm’s “designated server.” It has a 20 GB hard drive. My old computer actually had two physical drives so we mapped one to be the shared data drive. When I converted from my old computer, all of my documents and data files were set up to look at Drive H for these files. Rather than have to redirect all of my files, I set up a folder called “H” on my C drive and copied everything from my old H drive under that folder. I then edited my AUTOEXEC.BAT file to include the following line: SUBST C:\H H:\. This instructs my computer to substitute H:\ instead of seeing the H folder on my C drive as C:\H.

Another source for delay when starting or shutting down a Windows computer can be the presence of a tape backup unit. When you start the computer, the tape unit does a self-test and rewinds the tape. Until the tape is rewound, Windows won’t continue loading. It does a similar step during shut down. If you are ever in a rush to start up or shut down, pulling the backup tape out of the drive will move the process along.

Another culprit for slow startups is “fontitis.” Installing too many fonts, most of which you will never use, not only takes up unnecessary hard drive space but also slows down your system. Like the proverbial kid in the candy store, the first time you have access to lots of different typefaces, you are tempted to choose them all. If you’ve stayed with Courier in 10 point all these years, you may have been overwhelmed by the sheer number of different typefaces that come with both Corel’s WordPerfect suite and the Microsoft Office suite. Resist the temptation to install them all. Not sure how many and which fonts are installed on your computer? On Windows 95 and 98 computers, choose Start, then Control Panel, then double click the Fonts icon. In the lower left corner of the screen you will see the total number of fonts installed. Browsing through the list will let you know their names. Under the font option in your word processor, you can see a sample of each font style. Remember too that if you have a relatively recent laser printer, you have many of the standard fonts like Times New Roman already available through the printer.

Have you ever wondered what the extra keys on the newer keyboards are for? On most Pentium computers, there is a “Windows logo” key on either side of the space bar. If you look closely, you will see it has the same logo as the one that comes up when Windows 95 or 98 is opened. Pressing the Windows logo key once opens the Start menu on top of your current work. Holding down the Windows logo key and pressing the letter “M” minimizes all open screens. Holding down the Windows logo key and pressing the letter “E” opens Windows Explorer which is the program for managing files. Finally, holding down the Windows logo key and pressing the letter “F” starts the Find Files function.

The other new key is usually located on the right side of the space bar and looks like an arrow selecting from a menu. This key can be used instead of pressing the right button on your mouse. Anytime you could use your right button to call up quick menus, you can press this button instead.

Screen savers

New Windows users seem to learn how to install and change their screen saver before they master their basic applications. Screen savers, while entertaining, are no longer required to save your monitor. They take up valuable memory and often are the cause of performance issues on many computers. Windows NT servers are particularly vulnerable to slowdowns due to unnecessary screen savers. If you want to spend less time waiting for your computer or your server to perform, turn off the screen saver. To do this, go into Start, then Control Panel, then Display. There’s a neat shortcut if you are on the Windows desktop (the main starting point with icons and the start menu): right click on a blank area of the desktop, then choose Properties with your left mouse button and it takes you directly into the Display Properties screen. Choose the screen saver tab and choose none then click OK to accept.

One of the trickiest parts of managing a Windows computer is working with the start up files and initialization files for each application, also called .INI files because of their file extension. There are four basic files you may have occasion to edit that affect your start up environment. We’ve already discussed AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS. The two others are called WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI. WIN.INI has all sorts of interesting things like programs that you want to start behind the scenes such as a tape backup program or a reminder-type program like those that come with accounting programs such as Quicken to remind you to pay your bills. WIN.INI also keeps track of wallpaper selection. There are many default settings placed in the WIN.INI file as well. For example, it is the Extensions section of WIN.INI that Explorer uses to determine which program to open based on the filename extension (the last three characters after the period in a file name). Your printer information also is located in WIN.INI.

The SYSTEM.INI file contains driver and device information that used to be kept in the CONFIG.SYS file. On many computers, it is no longer necessary to have an AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS file since those settings are often duplicated in the WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files. The reason you might want to retain those files is for those times you need to work in DOS and need to access devices such as the CD-ROM drive.

To see or edit the four main setup files, Microsoft has provided a little program that brings all of them up at once. From the Start menu, choose Run then type “SYSEDIT” and press OK. You will see all of the files and you can edit them, print them or simply review them before closing the window.

If you have too many icons on your Windows desktop and are told by your technical support person that you need to go to a DOS prompt and can’t locate that icon quickly, get there faster by pressing the Start button, choose Run, then type “COMMAND.” When you are finished working in DOS, type “EXIT” to return to Windows.

One reader wrote in to follow up on last month’s column about viruses: “In attempting to implement your anti-viral measures, I did the following: (1) I copied AUTOEXEC.BAT to C:\AUTO.BAT. (2) Then I attempted to change (which I interpreted as the word ‘rename’) AUTOEXEC.BAT to read ‘auto.’ I was foiled at step two by a message to the effect that there was already a file in C:\ named ‘auto.’ So I guess I don’t know what the phrase ‘change the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to read auto’ means.”

For this reader and anyone else who got frustrated with this tip, please accept my apology.

The tip would have been clearer had the last part of the sentence read “edit the contents of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to contain only the command AUTO.” To do this, you can open Windows Explorer, highlight AUTOEXEC.BAT file, press the right mouse button and choose Edit with the left button. This will bring up Notepad and put the file contents into an editor. Highlight all of the text, delete it and replace it with the word AUTO. Then close and save the file. When this file executes as part of your startup, it will direct Windows to then run the AUTO.BAT file which has the real instructions, thereby setting up a buffer between a virus or hacker and your real AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

Carol L. Schlein is president of Law Office Systems, a Montclair-based training and consulting firm assisting small- and medium-sized law firms with technology. She formerly chaired the Computer and Technology Division of the ABA’s Law Practice Management Section and is an author of The Lawyer’s Guide to Timeslips, published by the ABA. She can be reached at carol@losinc.com.

Questions for Carol L. Schlein on law office technology may be faxed to New Jersey Lawyer at (732) 650-7010 or mailed to “Law Technology Questions,” New Jersey Lawyer, Edison Square, 2035 Lincoln Highway, Suite 3005, Edison, N.J. 08817.