Windows 95

CATCH 95, the pretzel logic that occasionally trips up users of America's best-selling operating system, continues to blossom in unexpected ways. One of the least amusing involves the question of what may happen if your hard drive or Windows 95 itself fails catastrophically.Even the fastidious are not immune. Make the admittedly unlikely assumption that you have dutifully backed up your hard drive with a backup utility for Windows 95. When your machine goes down for the count, you congratulate yourself on your foresight and thoroughness.

My computer is about 2 years old. And, though I would like to upgrade to a newer one, I don't have the funds to purchase what I want at this time. My system is a 166 MHz Pentium w/MMX running Windows 95. Should I upgrade the operating system, and, if so, to what - Windows 98? I'm finding less and less support for Windows 95 out there, including from Microsoft, and I am not a techie who can keep 95 running forever. Any help you can provide will be appreciated. It's relatively easy to get one's hands on older operating systems such as Windows 98 or even Windows 95 at discount stores or using auction Web sites such as www. ebay.

Mix together a pinch of CompuServe, a dash of America Online and a dab of Internet, throw in a few herbs and spices of your own, and what have you got?The Microsoft Network, Microsoft's already controversial on-line information service.Chairman Bill Gates showed off a test version of the new program last week at the fall Comdex show, the computer industry's largest trade show, in Las Vegas.The three-minute demonstration raised as many questions as it answered.What clearly emerged was that Microsoft Network, expected to be included with Windows 95 when the latter is released by the middle of next year, will give the Redmond, Wash.

My question deals with moving data from an old PC to a new one running Windows XP. I have purchased a new IBM NetVista A21 and would like to transfer some of the data from my old Gateway (100 mHz) with Windows 95. Because you are upgrading about as far as one can do it (95 all the way up to XP), you've got plenty of options, and none of them are going to be all that pleasant. First a word to readers with not as far to go: If your computer is running Windows 98 or ME and has a CD-recorder drive, you simply can burn a CD with all of your data on the old machine and transfer it to the new one. If you lack a CD-recorder, read on: The two best ways to move data from older computers to newer ones are either to connect the machines via serial cables or to acquire something like one of Iomega's Zip drives, capable of holding 100 or 250 megabytes of data on individual super discs.

THE HUMAN RACE HAS functioned fairly well for thousands of years despite a large number of operating system incompatibilities. There are different standards for sex, language, race, religion, politics and personal computers.With its new program Soft Windows 95 for Power Macintosh, Insignia Solutions Inc. has done little to resolve the battle of the sexes or the 1996 election, but it has succeeded fairly well in forging a closer relationship between the Macintosh and Windows cultures.Soft Windows 95, with an estimated retail price of $350, effectively converts a fast Macintosh into a slow 486-based PC that is capable of using Windows software.

As 1995 begins, the computer industry offers convincing evidence that nobody's perfect and everybody wants to be hip.Intel Corp. is belatedly spending $200 million on the first-ever consumer recall of a computer microprocessor, the Pentium chip. Meanwhile, Microsoft Corp. merits a procrastinator award for a second delay (until August) of its much-publicized Windows 95 software program. It claims there are no real problems and the delay wasn't prompted by the Intel debacle.Television commercials for some straight-laced computer companies lately have become more desperately "Generation X" in nature than ads for blue jeans or corn chips.

A year ago Windows 95 was known as Chicago and expected late in 1994. Since then a combination of curiosity, speculation, publicity and delay has made this operating system the cynosure of the computer business.Countering industry japes that the long-delayed product might not arrive before its name became history, Microsoft Corp. has announced that Windows 95 will be available Aug. 24, the date when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79.Barring a similar cataclysm, it is safe to say that lots of people will be using Windows 95 before long.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Microsoft Corp. reported yesterday that its earnings rose 54 percent in its fiscal second quarter, driven in part by sales of Windows 95. The results exceeded Wall Street estimates and set the stage for a continued rally in the technology stocks.Microsoft reported its results after the close of the market. In Nasdaq trading, Microsoft shares closed at $87.625, up $2.75, on a strong day for technology shares after IBM posted positive results.Analysts said they were reassured by the consistency with which Microsoft had been beating expectations for its earnings.

Operating systems are essentially programs meant to run other programs. Once upon a time they had self-effacing names like DOS and CP/M and p-system, silently intervened between computer programs and the hardware they ran on and were utterly alien to anyone outside the computer world.Times have changed. Now operating systems come with flashy handles like Warp and Windows, earn more notoriety than Kevin Costner movies and breed on-line brawls of religious ferocity. Although it will not be generally available until Aug. 24, the Microsoft Corp.

Under a blue tarpaulin on the selling floor of the Computer City store in Glen Burnie lie five pallets of Windows 95 boxes, piled up to create a pyramid effect. Store employees call it "Microsoft Mountain."Today the store cannot sell even one of the thousands of shrink-wrapped packages -- lest it bring down upon itself the wrath of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and his lethal legions of lawyers. "If we sell it, we die," Computer City President Alan Bush said yesterday.But tomorrow "at one nanosecond past midnight," said Mr. Bush, the tarp will come off and Windows 95 will emerge into the yearning marketplace.

I cannot find the folder for Accessories when I click on Start in Windows. So I cannot use Calculator, System Tools, Backup and other features of Windows. I have tried Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft technical support repeatedly to no avail. Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME/2000 all use a master folder called Programs to hold all of the programs that get made available when a user clicks on the Start button at the lower left of the screen of the Windows desktop. In your case, Accessories has flown the coop.

Now that Windows 95 is obsolete, what do you think about an upgrade to Windows ME? When Microsoft Corp. announced last month that it was retiring Windows 95, it marked something of the death of a superstar in the world of personal computing. It was Windows 95 that finally gave desktop computers powered by Intel chips the same sort of graphical user interface that the Macintosh operating system from Apple Computer Inc. had been delivering since 1984. After almost six years, chances are that the great bulk of PCs running Windows 95 are dinosaurs that lack the power and hardware features that make the latest Microsoft operating systems do their stuff.

I no longer get the sounds associated with computer card games like hearts, solitaire, FreeCell, etc. I recently installed Excite voice mail and needed to download RealPlayer. I've clicked on the sound box in FreeCell, but still nothing. Is there an easy way to correct this? A number of voice-oriented programs need to switch your computer's sounds on and off depending upon whether they are sending or receiving data. They tend to leave the settings switched off when they stop running. Just look for the little yellow icon shaped like a speaker in the screen's lower right-hand corner and double-click on it. Uncheck the Mute box in the display that pops up. If there is no speaker icon, you need to open the My Computer icon on the desktop and choose Control Panel and then Multimedia, where you will find the same settings that you can change.

Back when I started messing with computers, I thought operating systems -- the software that literally tells a computer how to be a computer -- were fascinating. But I had a propeller on my hat, was shunned by right-thinking people and was generally considered to be lost in a fantasy world. I would wait for the new version of MS-DOS, the operating system I used in those days, with the same anticipation and hope that normal people felt as they waited for the next great movie. Regular people looked at me funny.

You recommended an inexpensive product that would take a single frame from a camcorder and send that frame in e-mails to others. I have forgotten the product name and the Web site and company that sells it. Times change. We are being bombarded with gadgets for capturing single frames or movie clips from our camcorders, VCRs and broadcast television. The reason: Pentium-level chip speeds, huge hard drives capable of storing loads of gigantic graphics files, and the new universal serial bus connection that frees hobbyists of the need to open their computer cases and install complicated hardware cards, drivers and allied software.

I travel for business, and I need to get my msn.com mail at a location where I can't change the settings in someone else's system. I am looking for a Web site where I can enter my user name and password and get my e-mail.The popmail service built into almost any Internet service provider's e-mail service can forward e-mail to one of the many Web-based e-mail services.These Web sites let you log on to any Internet browser and offer e-mail accounts on the order of yourname@hotmail.com. They almost always let users access their e-mail accounts on traditional Internet service providers using the popmail feature, which is explained in detail during setup.

Microsoft Windows 95 is still vaporware and will be for another two weeks, but the fumes already appear to have claimed the first victim in the personal computer operating system wars.My copy of the OS/2 operating system, developed by International Business Machines, just went out the window.OS/2 is arguably superior to Microsoft Windows 95, at least on technical grounds. It is a robust, powerful operating system for -- running complex networks of personal computers in large offices and for connecting remote workers to office networks.

The scene is almost too grotesque to describe. It's nearly midnight. A moon-glow night. Somewhere lovers gambol. But not here.On this particular night, at this particular site, under this particular moon, grown men -- and even some grown women, all with Bill Gates decoder rings -- are lined up outside Computer City, CompUSA, Computo-Geek-orama or whatever your hometown discount computer store is called.It's the witching hour, and it's scary as hell.You saw it on TV, if you weren't there yourself.

In the fall of 1995, I bought a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion computer loaded with Microsoft Windows 95. But when I turned it on, Windows 95 wasn't what I saw. Instead, I was greeted by a cute, colorful animated screen that made it easy to launch programs and otherwise navigate through everyday use of the computer.Many other PC manufacturers were doing the same thing -- they had concluded that Windows 95 was still too confusing for many of their customers, particularly first-time buyers.Their motives weren't entirely altruistic.

When my husband is on the Web using Netscape, once in a while the cursor turns into a triangle with dot below it. Then its speed is increased, but he can't do anything with it except look at the Web page. The computer must be restarted to get rid of the pesky little thing. Can you tell us why this is happening so he can avoid it?The object of your frustration is a feature called Intellimouse. Your husband apparently is clicking the little wheel at the front of your newfangled mouse between the left clicker and the right clicker.