"If at first you don't succeed, look in the trash for the instructions."
Windows
Me Tips !
The
Latest Windows Me News & Tips!
Part 6
a
Customizing Windows Me Startup!
Windows Start up!
When you first turn on your computer, by Raymond, WebTechGeek.com - when you turn on yourcompute it goes through it's power on self-test. All the commands stored in your computer's BIOS, and your video card's ROM chip are also carried out. The last command found in the BIOS is to execute the program that resides in the boot tracks of the boot device on your hard drive. The BIOS will find Io.sys "the route to Windows" in the boot track unless you have Windows 2000, NT or OS/2 installed. In all these cases their boot program will be found in the boot tracks. The boot manager that comes with these operating system allow you to go to the Windows Io.sys next, If that's your desire.
Some BIOS settings are displayed on your screen during the power-on self-test. After these BIOS settings are displayed, the DOS bootup process begins, and on some computers you see the text message (Loading Windows Me} Note: not all computers get this display message. After BIOS finishes loading, your system begins loading Windows. At this phase you get a splash screen, while all of the drives and programs that make up Windows are being loaded.
Windows will allow you to press and hold the CTRL key during the power-on self-test. If you hold down this key until you see "Starting Windows" the startup process will bring up the (Startup menu.) If it doesn't, display the "Starting windows" message, just hold down the CTrl key for a few seconds during the power-on self-test.
Temporarily Turn off Startup!
You can Temporarily Turn off Startup, you may have some programs that you'd sometimes like as part of your Startup group, but not always. A handy solution is to put the shortcuts to these programs in a separate StartUp-Not folder beneath the C:\windows\start mune\programs folder in "Windows Explorer". You can easily drag the shortcuts from the Startup-Not subfolder to the regular Startup folder when you want to recommence running the application at startup time.
Tip: You can also keep Windows from loading the startup group at all by holding down the Shift key during the Windows phase of the bootup process.
Windows Troubleshooting!
Microsoft provides troubleshooting guidelines to help you determine what is causing a problem when you can't start Windows in normal fashion, at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q136/3/37.asp
System Configuration Utility
Windows includes a system configuration utility (Msconfig.exe) that gives you much easier and more finely grained control of the Windows startup process. To get it, click Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>System Information. In the System Information menu, click Tools>System Configuration Utility. You can use this utility to choose files to process during startup. The Windows System Configuration Utility lets you decide whether or not to run any one of the programs in your startup group when you start Windows.
Pause during Power-on self-test
Sometimes you'd like to be able to read the messages that your BIOS is displaying on your screen. The POST screen is still a convenient place to find some information about your computer. Some computers allow you to pause during POST, to do ti just press the Pause/Break key.
Bootlog
Your computer root directory contain a file that records the steps your computer went through when it booted up. But it won't be a record of the last time that you started your computer, because it isn't created every time. If you'd like to create a new bootlog.txt file that records your next reboot, you can edit the Msdos.sys file in your root directory. Because this is a read only file, you'll need to clear that file attribute first you need to right-click on Msdos.sys in your Explorer, click Properties, and clear the Read-only checkbox, edit the file, and then set it again. The change you need to make to Msdos.sys is to add the line bootMenuDefault-2. Once you've added this line to the Msdos.sys file and you've changed the file attribute back to read-only, you can restart your computer. A bootlog.txt file will be created. You can use a handy little freeware utility called the Boot Log Analyzer will display failures or delays in your bootlog.txt file. Get it here http://www.vision4.dial.pipex.com/ It will point out the problems in your bootlog.txt file.
Stop Searching for Floppy Disks !
You can speed up speed up the Windows startup process by telling Windows not to bother looking for a floppy drive. Have Windows ignore the floppy drive, hold down your Alt key as click My computer. In the System Properties dialog box, click the Performance tab, and click the File System button. Click the floppy disk tab, and clear "search for new floppy disk drives each time your computer starts." Now click OK twice.
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