Windows 98 Utilities Missing in Windows Me?
Lincoln Spector
I recently installed Windows Me on my system. This morning I tried to run Sysedit and was rudely informed that the file cannot be found or doesn't exist. Did Microsoft really remove this handy utility? Is there an alternative?
Alexander Ross, Boston
The system editor, also called Sysedit, is one of two utilities that were included with earlier versions of Windows but may not be part of Windows Me. (I'll discuss the other missing utility, System File Checker, in a minute.) To edit your system files in a text-editor environment in Windows 9x, select Start, Run, type sysedit, and press Enter. In Windows Me, you may get an error message when you try this.
Microsoft says that the System Configuration Utility (Msconfig), introduced in Windows 98, is a better tool for editing system.ini and win.ini. The other files you once edited in Sysedit--autoexec.bat, config.sys, and protocol.ini--are no longer relevant in the less-DOS-dependent Me environment.
You launch Msconfig much as you did Sysedit: Select Start, Run, type msconfig, and press Enter. Alternatively, you can open Sysedit by clicking Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Information, and in the System Information applet, pick Tools, System Configuration Utility.
Whether Msconfig's tabbed and structured environment makes editing these files easier is a matter of personal taste: If you prefer Sysedit-style text editing, select Start, Run, enter win.ini or system.ini, and press Enter to have the file come up in Notepad (or whatever program you've selected as your default text editor). Sysedit and Notepad let you do real editing, and thus allow you to introduce real syntax errors, whereas Msconfig keeps a record of every change you make.
If you've upgraded to Me, you may still have your old Sysedit file. The installation process doesn't always remove the old sysedit.exe file, which still works in Windows Me. Try launching it, and you may be pleasantly surprised.
On the other hand, the Windows Me upgrade installation does remove System File Checker. This handy Windows 98 program scans your hard drive looking for important system files that have been altered and offers to restore the original version. This is valuable because installation programs often replace these system files with old, incompatible, or altered versions.
If you have Windows 98, it's wise to run System File Checker after you install an application. To launch it, select Start, Run, type sfc, and press Enter.
Windows Me replaces System File Checker with System File Protection. You cannot launch System File Protection; it always runs in the background. This makes the utility more reliable than System File Checker, since it can catch a program in the act of alteration. On the other hand, System File Protection likely contributes to Me's slower performance, and you can't turn the program off.
Uninstall the Right Fonts
I've heard that having too many fonts can cause system problems. I have about 625 fonts on my PC. Is this too many? If so, how can I tell which ones are critical to my system?
Paul J. Dubman, Boise, Idaho
Excess fonts can hog system resources, but it takes a lot of them to have an impact. Since you have so many installed, you might want to do some trimming.
To view your fonts, select Start, Run, type fonts, and press Enter. To see what a font looks like, double-click its icon. You can delete a font by right-clicking it and selecting Delete, but it's safer to uninstall it by dragging it to another folder or drive--so you can always drag it back. You must do this dragging (in either direction) from within Windows Explorer. Moving or copying a font to or from the C:\Windows\Fonts folder via DOS commands or a third-party file management utility won't properly install or uninstall it.
Some fonts should stay put--notably Windows system fonts, which have the extension.fon instead of.ttf. The icon for a system font has a red 'A' rather than a gray-blue 'TT'. System fonts are usually hidden files, but they're visible in the Fonts folder in Explorer. They disappear when you move them elsewhere, though. Some applications require specific fonts, such as Arial or Times New Roman, so you'd better keep them around.
Change Win Me's Places Bar
In the November 2000 issue, you explained how to customize the Office 2000 Open Dialog Places Bar. Windows Me has a seemingly identical Places Bar. How do you customize this one?
Paul Slater, Palatine, Illinois
I was about to give up on finding an answer to this problem (a Microsoft representative I consulted told me flatly that it was impossible), when reader Shaun Lyon of Studio City, California, helped me out. Microsoft's Tweak UI freeware lets you customize the Places Bar. You'll need to have version 1.33, which is available from our Downloads library.
Select Start, Settings, Control Panel and double-click Tweak UI (in Windows Me, you may have to click view all Control Panel options first). If your Tweak UI dialog box does not include three rows of tabs, it's not version 1.33.
To change the Places Bar, first click the Open tab. There you'll see a combination box for every icon that the bar contains. You can replace an icon either by selecting another choice from the pull-down menu (these are the Microsoft-approved choices) or by typing in the path to any drive or folder. A browse button would have been useful, but none is included. Click OK once you've made your change.
His Outlook Express or Hers?
My wife and I use Outlook Express identities to access our e-mail accounts. If I don't remember to pick File, Switch Identity when I use the program after her, the e-mail I send appears to come from her. How can we ensure that Outlook Express will know which of us is using the program?
Bob Slemmer, St. Augustine
If you use Internet Explorer 5 (and thus Outlook Express 5), you can make the program ask you to select an identity every time Outlook Express loads after Windows boots. In Outlook Express, select File, Identities, Manage Identities, and in the 'Start up using' field, select Ask Me and click Close.
Unfortunately, if you exit Outlook Express and then reenter it, you won't be asked your identity; and Outlook Express 5.5 doesn't give you this option. (Outlook Express versions before 5 didn't offer identities at all.) So make Outlook Express change its appearance when you change identities. Since the program remembers the shape and size of its window for each identity, if one of you agrees to maximize the window to full screen, and the other agrees not to, you'll see the difference. Any change to the look of the program, including options from the View, Layout dialog box, should suffice.
Organize Your Newsgroups in Outlook Express
I subscribe to a long and unwieldy list of newsgroups in Outlook Express. Is there any practical way to separate them by subject?
Jason Smith, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Outlook Express allows you to create as many newsgroup accounts as you like, and it doesn't care a bit if all of them are set to point to a single ISP account.
To create a newsgroup account, select Tools, Accounts and click the News tab. Double-click your existing account (I'm assuming you have one) and click the Server tab. With the 'Server name' field selected, press Ctrl-C and then Esc.
In the Internet Accounts dialog box, select Add, News and follow the instructions in the resulting wizard. When asked for a News Server, press Ctrl-V.
After you're done with the wizard, double-click the new account and rename it appropriately ( Movies, Music, or whatever); then click OK and Close.
Unfortunately, you won't be able to copy or move newsgroups from one account to another. Instead, you'll have to subscribe to each one in the new account and then unsubscribe in the old one.
Easier Office Places
The November 2000 Answer Line column explained how to customize the Places Bar in Office 2000's Open and Save As dialog boxes by editing the Windows Registry. Reader Dave Traweek of Portland, Oregon, knows an easier way.
Mike Craven's WOPR PlaceBar Customizer freeware offers a dialog box for choosing your preferred places, and it makes the Registry changes for you. You'll find the program at Woody's Office Portal.
Send questions to answer@pcworld.com. Answer Line pays $50 for published items. You'll find Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector's humorous writing at The Link Inspector.