Older Operating Systems Class Notes # 21 Windows 9X Maintenance January 27, 2004 Maintenance Wizard The Windows maintenance wizard automates the following: ScanDisk Disk Defragmenter Clearing system temporary files & networking components Windows uses the maintenance wizard to run the tools (i.e. scandisk, disk defrag, etc.) automatically on specific days and during specific times. To run the windows maintenance wizard perform the following: click start, programs, accessories, system tools, and maintenance wizard. If this is the first time you run maintenance wizard, then the first screen you see will ask if you want to perform an express or custom tune up (see figure one). Figure 1: Maintenance Wizard tune-up options The express set-up uses the most common tune-up settings and is a quick way to get the maintenance wizard running. The custom set-up enables you to select each tune-up settings. ScanDisk ScanDisk checks and fixes problems on hard disk, floppy disk, RAM drives, and memory cards. ScanDisk cannot fix errors on CD-ROM, network drives, or drives created with MS-DOS commands: assign, subst, join, or interlnk. ScanDisk checks and fixes the following: FAT (File Allocation Tables) 1
Long filenames File system structures (lost clusters, cross linked files) Directory tree structure Physical surface of the drive (bad sectors) DriveSpace or DoubleSpace volume header, volume file structure, compression structure, and volume signatures. Windows 98 ScanDisk can perform this operation over FAT16 and FAT32 formatted hard disks. To start ScanDisk, click start, programs, settings, system tools, ScanDisk. The ScanDisk dialog box will appear as shown in figure two. Figure 2: ScanDisk dialog box The standard test checks all files on the hard disk for errors and to report any errors. ScanDisk will not check the physical sectors on the hard disk and is faster than the thorough test. The thorough test check all files on the hard disk and also performs a surface scan to check the physical disk for errors. Any errors found on the physical disk are marked as bad and ScanDisk will attempt to move any information in those bad sectors to a good sector. If you check the Automatically fix errors check box, ScanDisk will provide you with the following options to deal with errors: Ignore the error and continue Repair the error by Delete the affected [file, folder, and so on] 2
The advanced button gives you the following options: Display summary. This option allows you to choose between the following: Always display a summary, never display a summary, and Only five a summary when errors are found. Log file. ScanDisk creates a log file (C:\SCANDISK.LOG) whenever it runs. You can choose to Replace log, Append to log, or No log. Cross-linked files. The option for cross linked files are: Delete to remove both files from the hard disk, Make copies to Re-copy each file to a different area of the hard disk, and Ignore if you want ScanDisk to keep searching for other errors without fixing this one. It is recommended that you make copies. Performance Settings The performance settings allows you to check your system resources. To see your computer s performance settings, follow these steps: 1. Right click My Computer 2. Left click properties 3. Choose the performance tab (see figure three) Figure 3: Main performance page 3
There are three advanced settings as shown in figure three. The file system properties box has five option tabs: Hard disk, floppy disk, CD-ROM, removable disk, and troubleshooting. This is shown in figure four. Figure 4: The file system properties dialog box In the Hard Disk settings comes with two options: Typical role of the computer. The three options are: Desktop computer, Mobile or docking system, and network computer. Laptop users should use the Mobile or docking system. Read-Ahead Optimization. This should be set to full by default unless you have problems shutting down and restarting properly. The Floppy Disk tab contains one option, which enables you to have the computer search for new floppy drives when the system first starts. Desktop users should disable this option. The CD-ROM tab configures the read-ahead and buffering for the CD-ROM. The options are shown in figure five. The two options are: Supplemental cache size. This should be set to large. If your computer hangs during shutdown, then it could be due to the CD-ROM cache not flushing properly and therefore you should reduce the cache size settings. Optimize access pattern for. You should select the quad-speed or higher settings. 4
Figure 5: The CD-ROM dialog box The removable disk tab contains one option, which is Enable write behind caching on all removable disk drives. The write behind caching enables applications to execute faster by saving the disk writes to a buffer area in memory. This is faster than writing the data directly to the disk. Typically, the write behind caching is enabled by default for hard disks. The only reason to use this option is for removable media. The trouble shoot tab is useful when you are using MS-DOS programs. The Troubleshoot tab contains six options: Disable new file sharing and locking semantics. Some older MS-DOS cannot handle new file sharing capabilities. Disable long name preservation for older programs. This option turns of the tunnelling feature, which preserves long filenames when files are opened and saved by applications that do not recognize long filenames. Disable protected mode hard disk interrupt handling. This option prevents Windows from terminating interrupts from the hard disk controller and bypassing the ROM routines that handles such interrupts. This option is off by default. Disable synchronous buffer commits. This option causes write initiation of the API buffer to the hard disk but allows users to continue to working before the write is completed. Disable all 32-bit protected mode disk drives. This option will cause compatibility mode paging to show up in the general properties tab for all hard drives. Use this option only for troubleshooting. Disable write behind caching for all drives. This will shut off all cache options for all disk drives. 5
The graphics button on the main properties tab (see figure three) will display the advanced graphics settings dialog box as shown in figure six. Figure 6: Hardware acceleration Hardware acceleration is a boost to your system but can also cause fatal exception errors and looks like the following: (filename) caused a Fatal Exception error in module (filename) at: 0128:bfff (more numbers) If the bfff series starts with A, B, or C then the error could be a video problem. To correct this, install the latest video drivers and/or lower the hardware accelerations settings. The virtual memory button on the main properties tab allows Windows to load and run faster and more efficiently. Every program that you load adds drivers and files to the virtual memory area. Also, Windows loads virtual drivers, video drivers, hard disk drives, etc. into virtual memory. The virtual memory dialog box is shown in figure seven. The best option is to let Windows manage your virtual memory settings. Windows 98 has dynamic swap files that grow and shrink in size. Specifying your own settings can improve performance but it imposes limitations on Windows in terms of what files be swapped from RAM. Specifying a minimum and maximum size will make a permanent swap file on your hard disk that does not change in size and therefore Windows doesn t have to manage the file. The more RAM you have in your system, the smaller the swap file that is required. Also, do not disable your virtual memory, as this will slow down your system considerable. 6
Figure 7: Virtual memory dialog box 7