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| Tune
Up Your System |
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Defrag
Regularly
Removing data from your system
leaves empty spaces on your hard drive. When Windows saves new data, it
fills in these cracks, often splitting up files and thus increasing the
amount of time it takes to access that file. To help reorganize your
hard drive into continuous chunks and consequently speed up system
performance, Microsoft includes a defragmenting program in its OSs (and
has since DOS 6.0).
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Windows
98's new defrag program lets you break files into pieces and
start apps more quickly.
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The Windows 98 defrag utility is better than its predecessors. It
records the way Windows accesses files when you run a program, then
reorganizes those files to fit how Windows works. For example, it
organizes files sequentially, in the order Windows reads them, and
places your most frequently accessed programs on the fastest parts of
your disk. The end result? A speed boost for all your programs, and a
bigger boost for your favorites.
Get FAT
Compressing your data with the
Windows DriveSpace utility is a really bad idea. It does save disk
space, but it also slows down system performance. That's because
compressing and expanding files hogs resources that could be used for
running other programs. Even Microsoft agrees: since the release of
Windows 98, the company has suggested converting your disk to FAT32
format instead of using DriveSpace.
Unfortunately, FAT32 format has its share of problems, too. In our
tests, FAT32 disks lagged a few percentage points behind disks formatted
in the older FAT16 format. Most home users probably won't notice the
difference, but if you really need the speediest performance you can
get, stick with an uncompressed FAT16 drive and buy an extra hard disk.
You
probably won't know the difference between 16- and 32-bit color,
but your video card will.
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Go Easy on
Video
If your screen redraws slowly or
you experience other video glitches, your video card may be working too
hard. Some video cards claim to offer screen resolutions and color
depths they can't actually support. If you think your card might be
maxed out, try bumping down the color depth or screen resolution a notch
in the Display Control Panel (Start/Settings/Control Panel/Display), or
right-click the desktop and choose Properties. Unless you're a graphic
designer, you probably won't notice the difference between 32-bit true
color and 16-bit high color, anyway.
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