Windows 95 requirements

80386DX or higher machine at least 4 MB of RAM (8 MB

recommended) mouse VGA or better monitor hard drive with at least 20 MB of free

space

Installing Win95 over 3.x

On a computer with Win3.x, you can install Win95 in same directory, which will install it on top of existing Windows » configuration information obtained from existing

SYSTEM.INI, WIN.INI, and PROTOCOL.INI files and moved into Windows 95 Registry.

» Existing settings will work automatically when Windows 95 is first started.

» Existing Windows 3.x Group (.GRP) files imported into Registry

Installing 95 in own directory

If you install Win95 in new directory, you can preserve the old DOS or Windows environment.

To boot to both operating systems, must configure the system with dual boot options.

How do you configure a dual boot?» Set MSDOS.SYS file’s BootMulti= 1

Windows 95 core files:

KERNEL32.DLL and KERNEL386.EXE» contain Win95 core and load device drivers.

GDI files provide graphical device interface USER files provide the user interface. WIN.INI included for compatibility with older

16-bit software. Can use SysEdit to edit SYSTEM.INI,

PROTOCOL.INI, CONFIG.SYS, WIN.INI, AUTOEXEC.BAT (Start/Run, type “sysedit”).

Windows 95 registry

Configuration information in Win95 is stored in the registry, located in WINDOWS/SYSTEM folder

Registry takes over many of the functions of SYSTEM.INI and WIN.INI files

Can be viewed and edited with regedit.exe Each time Windows boots successfully,

existing registry files are backed up with DAO extension

Registry Keys:

Hierarchical organization of 6 keys:» HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT » HKEY_CURRENT_USER » HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE » HKEY_USERS» HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG » HKEY_DYN_DATA

Know what each one of these does!

Registry files

Registry files are USER.DAT and SYSTEM.DAT

Each time the system succesfully boots, backup copies of the registry are saved as USER.DA0 and SYSTEM.DA0

If Windows 95 starts and is missing either USER.DAT or SYSTEM.DAT, it will restore from the backup copy

Windows 95 memory

Swap file in Win 95 called WIN386.SWP» initial size set automatically by Windows» can change size in Device

Manager/Performance/Virtual Memory» default swap file setting in Win95 usually results

in huge swap file size- much larger than needed- best to set to 2-3 times the amount of RAM in system

CONFIG.SYS is necessary only if you have 16 bit device drivers

MDDOS.SYS

In Windows 95, this is hidden, read-only located in root directory of boot drive

used for startup options See Meyers 610-11 for options you can set

here Most important:

» BOOTMULTI=1 to boot other operating system

File Allocation Tables (FAT)

FAT indexes hard disk contents and files Windows 95 (a) uses FAT16 OSR2 - Windows 95(b) - supports FAT32 FAT32 features:

» reduced cluster size (4K) compared to FAT16- resulting in much less wasted cluster size

» no limit to number of root directory entries (limit of 255 in FAT 16)

» FAT 32 stores 2 copies of boot sector, so if one copy is damaged, can recover backup

More about Win95

Windows 95 supports VFAT- Virtual FAT» 32-bit Protected-Mode FAT File System» provides support for long file names

Windows 95 doesn’t use SMARTDRV disk caching utility - replaced with VCACHE, a protected mode drive

Windows 95 boot process

Win95 initially starts in real mode, loads any 16-bit legacy drivers, then switches to protected mode for 32-bit operations

Five phases of boot process:» Phase 1 Bootstrap with the BIOS» Phase 2 Loading DOS drivers and TSR files» Phase 3 Real-mode initialization of static virtual

device drivers (VxDs)» Phase 4 Protected-mode switch over» Phase 5 Loading of any remaining VxDs

Windows 95 log files

Windows 95 maintains log files that track system performance and can be used to assess system failures.

SETUPLOG.TXT logs bootup events DETLOG.TXT detected hardware devices BOOTUPLOG.TXT logs Startup procedure stored in the drive’s root directory All three are text files that can be viewed with

any text editor

Win 95 Boot Modes

Normal mode -loads all normal startup and Registry files.

Logged - Normal mode, but system maintains an error log file that contains steps performed and outcome. (BOOTLOG.TXT)

Step-by-Step Confirmation displays each startup command line-by-line and waits for confirmation before proceeding» enables you to isolate faulty startup command » press F8 key at Startup menu

Safe Mode

» Bypasses several startup files - particularly, the Registry, CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, and the SYSTEM.INI’s [Boot] and [386enh] sections.

» Loads keyboard, mouse, and VGA drivers » If Win95 determines that a problem is

preventing system from starting, it attempts to restart the system in Safe mode.

» Safe mode can also be accessed by typing Win /d:m at the DOS prompt, or by pressing the F5 function key during startup.

Windows 95 features

Plug and Play support Filenames up to 255 characters Troubleshooting and evaluation tools

(Start/Programs/Access/System Tools):» System Monitor tracks performance of system

resources » Resource Meter is a bar chart displaying

percent usage of the System Resources, User Resources, and GDI resources.

Suggestions...

The best way to prepare for the Windows 95 questions is to actually work with the software- get familiar with the interface, know how to change settings, etc.

For example, make sure you know: » how to configure virtual memory

– Device Manager/System/Performance/Virtual Memory

» how to change disk cache settings– Control Panel/System/Performance/File System

More hands-on things to know

» where to edit the registry (careful!)– Start-run-regedit

» how to make a boot disk – Control Panel/Add Remove Programs/Startup Disk– note that this won’t keep a copy of the registry; but a

program called ERU.EXE on the Win95 CD will make an emergency recovery utility to enable you to save all important Windows files, including registry, to a floppy

» Where to troubleshoot hardware conflicts, etc.– Device Manager (yellow exclamation point indicates

conflict)