If you have installed Win95 over Windows 3.x:
You can have removed the WIN32S directory from Windows 3.x ("The entire WIN32S directory under your WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory, if there, is used in Windows 3.x only to let certain 32-bit programs run.") before installing win95.
You should have removed all files ending with .tmp (often in \DOS and \WINDOWS\TEMP directories.
Deleted files ending in .chk or .*dd.
Removed:
Files beginning with "mwun" (Undelete for Windows files won't work either)
Files in the DOS directory ending with .hlp (DOS help files) and .bas
The directory \DELOLDOS if you have it
You can usually empty any subdirectory called CACHE.
Post-Installation Issues (after installing Win95)
Easy deletions:
After Win95 is installed (particularly if it's over Windows 3.x), it leaves many files you can immediately delete. There may be a file called Win95undo.dat; if you don't plan to remove Win95, delete it (you can remove it from the Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, Install/Uninstall tab). In your root directory, you can usually delete files ending with .txt. .prv, .---, .log, and .old. In the \WINDOWS directory, files ending with .log, .old, .bak, .000, .001, etc., are fair game. You also can delete files with the following dates (they belong to old versions of Windows): 03-10-92 (Windows 3.1); 09-30-92 (Windows for Workgroups 3.1); 11-01-93 (Windows for Workgroups 3.11); and 12-31-93 (Windows 3.11).
Hunt for and delete files named Mscreate.dir. There may be hundreds of these useless, hidden files created by Microsoft installation programs. Any directory named ~MSSETUP.T is a temporary directory created during the installation of a program.
DON'T delete the following: files in your SYSBCKUP folder; your Registry (System.dat, System.da0, User.dat, User.da0), as well as System.1st, which you can use if the first four become corrupted or any files in your root directory not mentioned above.
If you're not sure if something is safe to delete, try moving it first to see if its absence makes a difference.
Win95 installs many accessories, some of which you may never use. And if you installed it over Windows 3.x, that left some older accessories made obsolete by Win95 successors. However, Win95 provides facilities for removing both old and new Windows applets. Just start Control Panel, double leftclick Add/Remove Programs, the left-click the Windows Setup tab.
To remove fonts, start Control Panel and double left-click the Fonts icon. Highlight fonts you want to trash, then choose File, Delete. (NOTE: TrueType font files end with .ttf. Windows 3.x also created an .fot file for every .ttf file. Win95 doesn't need these. If you ever find .fot files in Win95, you can delete them.)
You can remove the WIN32S directory from Windows 3.x ("The entire WIN32S directory under your WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory, if there, is used in Windows 3.x only to let certain 32-bit programs run.") before installing win95. Some old programs wrongly re-install it into Win95. If so, you can remove it again, as long as you also remove any references to it in your System.ini file and restart Win95.
A detailed log of installation activities helps the uninstallation process for removing third-party programs. One utility for creating such a log is InCtrl 3. Run InCtrl 3 before installing new software (even updates), and it saves a log useful for later manually removing it. Although it won't actually uninstall itself, if you want to save money, or like tinkering, uninstalling with InCtrl 3 still beats manual uninstallation.
Before removing a program by hand, always check to see if it's listed in the Remove/Add Software dialog boxes. Better yet, see if there's a shortcut somewhere labeled, for instance, "Uninstall ZorchWriter." Removing a prgram by deleting its shortcut from the Desktop only gets rid of the icon. The shortcut should go, but last, not first, because it contains useful deletion information. So right-click the shortcut, then Properties, then the Shortcut tab. That will tell you where the actual program resides. Using Explorer, access the file or folder you want to remove, right-click it, then select Delete.
Windows 3.x programs make .ini files in \WINDOWS. These can, and usually should, be removed for all removed programs. Once they are deleted, go back to your Desktop and remove the program's shortcut. (When a program is installed, it often makes entries in the Registry, too, not advised to be edited by a novice.)
All applications open files when they run. DOS provides a method to set aside enough memory to keep track of the various files that applications may need to read and leave open. This memory area is set aside by a statement in the Config.sys file such as Files=30. This allows DOS to reserve memory for the names that applications use to manipulate files; these names are called "file handles."
When you start a DOS application in a Windows DOS session that uses a lot of open files, you may see the following error message:
This message is in error, and changing the Files= statement in your Config.sys will not cause it to go away. Instead, the message should advise as follows:
The number of file handles specified in the Config.sys file relates to the number of file handles that are available to applications. The Pervmfiles= statement in System.ini refers to the number of file handles that can be open per virtual machine under Windows. Without any Pervmfiles= statement in System.ini, Windows defaults to only 10 file handles allowed within a DOS session. This may not be enough for some DOS applications.
Windows recommends 30 file handles in Config.sys. You should change the file handles per virtual machine in System.ini only if you receive an error message. Each file handle requires a very small amount of memory, only a few bytes under DOS.
The number of handles specified by the Files= line in Config.sys and Pervmfiles= in System.ini combined cannot be greater than 255 (although it is unlikely anyone would need to approach this limit).
Note: Bold and light text-editing is intentional.
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