Windows 98 Annoyances: Taking Charge of Windows 98 - Softcover

David A. Karp

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1565924177 ISBN 13: 9781565924178

Publisher: O'Reilly Media, 1998

Synopsis

An operating system is a piece of software that should do its work in the background while you do your work in the foreground. In an ideal world, that's precisely how an operating system would work. In our world, however, operating systems constantly get in our way. They annoy us. And few are more annoying than Microsoft Windows 98. Perhaps you're annoyed with the icons that Windows deposits on your desktop and that you never use. Or you're frustrated with the new elements of the Windows 98 interface. Or you consider Windows 98's central feature, its integration of Windows and the Web, to be a massive inconvenience.

With Windows 98 Annoyances, you can put an end to these and countless other annoyances. Given the book's format, which presents particular problems and immediately offers one or more solutions, you can quickly identify the Windows 98 features that most annoy you and equally quickly provide a fix for them. In the process, you'll take charge of Windows so that it works the way you want, rather than the way that Microsoft or some other software publisher has configured it.

Based on the author's extremely popular Windows Annoyances web site www.annoyances.org, Windows 98 Annoyances provides an authoritative collection of techniques for customizing Windows 98, including:

• Useful keyboard shortcuts that let you work with Windows 98 more efficiently
• Techniques for working with the Windows registry, the database of system and application-specific configuration information
• Available third-party software and utilities that handle some of the more complex workarounds and customizations
• Dealing with software applications that overwrite your file associations without warning
• A discussion of scripting with the Windows Scripting Host as a means of eliminating many of the Windows 98's annoyances to be the definitive resource for customizing Windows 98.

About this title

Review:

Windows 98 ships without its source code, but it's still possible to tweak it to look and behave the way you want. Sometimes you need to poke around and modify the operating system's binary files with a hex editor; sometimes all you need to do is perform some trickery with the interface as it is. Windows 98 Annoyances is for those who refuse to accept Windows 98 at face value.

Author David Karp is clearly a power user, but rather than simply dump reams of technical data upon the reader, he explains how to accomplish specific goals relative to Windows 98's appearance and behavior. Karp tells how to rig your system to flush its Temp folder (reclaiming disk space formerly used by crashed applications) every time it starts up. He also tells you how to build a text box that acts like a DOS command prompt. Excellent nuggets pack this book, and you can feel sure you'll implement at least a few of them on your machine.

Windows 98 Annoyances is, ultimately, about hacking Windows 98, never accepting anything as good enough, and always looking for a better way to do things. Karp provides excellent guidance to the Windows 98 power user. --David Wall

From the Publisher:

The CD-ROM that was originally included with this book included software which is no longer available or supported. Current reprints do not include the CD. However, additional information and resources are available from the author's website at annoyances.org.

About this edition

• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1565924177
• ISBN 13: 9781565924178
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464