by Joyce Kohl
August 6, 1998
Get Rid of Instant Messenger
Seeing this critter pop up in my system tray became extremely annoying to me. No, I was
more than annoyed; I was to the point of lividity. Even when I chose NOT to install it
during a clean installation, there the ugly little thing was in my system tray as soon as I
booted my computer.
I had almost abandoned any hope of permanent death for it. Not wanting to mess with the registry, I simply disabled the little monster. But guess what!? I needn't be a rocket scientist (which is what you need to be to mess around with the registry!) to delete it. A light bulb FINALLY flickered on, and here's how to bury it forever:
• Click on Start/Run
• Type MSCONFIG, and press Enter
Here's the screen:
• Click on the Startup tab
• Find the AOL Instant Messenger
• Highlight it by clicking on it
• Click on the box with the check mark to uncheck it.
It's the first one on my system and looks like this:
• Click the OK tab
Voila! Rest in peace!
Repairing/Restoring System Files
With all the installations I do to test applications, many of my system files are
overwritten/replaced. Sometimes they're improperly overwritten. To restore/repair these, I
use Tweak UI which is on the Windows 98 CD. You must first install it, of course.
Steps to Repair/Restore System Files:
NOTE: This requires the \SYSBCKUP directory created by Windows during installation. If you have deleted it, this will not work.
• Go to the Control Panel
• Click on Tweak UI which looks like this:
• Find the Repair tab, using the arrows on the right to get to it.
• In the drop down box, select Repair System Files
• Click on Repair Now
Your screen should look like this prior to clicking on Repair Now:
This can be VERY fast and you may think nothing happened.
• Close any programs that may be open
• Restart your computer, Start/Shutdown/Restart
If you had any "quirky" error messages before (like starting an application and the system popping up a dialog box indicating a missing or corrupt file), this will probably fix it.
Surf the Internet With Shortcuts on Your Desktop
• Right click on the Desktop
• Select New
• Select Shortcut
You should see something similar to this screen, prior to selecting Shortcut. It will depend on which area of your desktop on which you first right clicked. The second box will pop up to the right IF there is room, otherwise it will appear elsewhere, but still beside the first one:
• Enter the full address (URL) for the Website.
Example: http://goinside.com
• Click Next
• Select a Name for your shortcut
Here's mine - named GO INSIDE (what else?)
• Click Finish
• Right click on your new shortcut
• Select Rename
• Give the Shortcut a descriptive name such as GO INSIDE
Here's my shortcut to the Go Inside Website. Note: The icon will reflect YOUR default browser.
• The next time you want to visit GO INSIDE, click on your new shortcut.
If you create more than two or three Internet Shortcuts, create a new folder, name it, and drag your shortcuts into the folder. Or create a new toolbar and place them all of your Internet Shortcuts on a toolbar.
Copyright © 1998 by Joyce Kohl
"Go Inside" is a David Boles Trademark