Sounds
Users with sound boards installed in their Windows NT computers can configure system sounds with the Control Panel’s Sounds applet. This applet lets you customize which sound files (.wav files) are played for different events in Windows NT 4.0. The Sounds applet dialog box is shown in Figure 5.59.
Special Note: The Sounds applet is only applicable if you have a sound card installed on your system and a Windows NT 4.0-compatible driver installed for the card.
The Events window lists all of the programs capable of assigning sounds to events. By default, this list includes Windows, Windows Explorer, Media Player, and Sound Recorder. Within each of these applications is listed all of the different event types to which you can assign sounds. Use the up and down scroll bars at the right of the dialog box to view additional programs and program event types.
Windows NT 4.0 sound files are in the .wav file format. Any .wav file may be assigned to a Windows NT sound event. To assign a sound file to an event, first select the event in the Events list. Then, either click the arrow to the right of the Name box to open a drop-down list of sound file choices or choose the Browse button to search other folders on your system for a sound file to assign to the event. By default, the .wav files in the %SYSTEMROOT%\Media folder are displayed. To display .wav files in other folders, simply navigate to those folders after choosing the Browse button.
To preview a sound file, choose the sound file from the drop-down list or use Browse to locate a sound file in another folder. Once selected, choose the play button to the right of the sound file’s name and icon display (the play button has a right-pointing triangle). To stop playing a sound, choose the stop button (the button with a square). To get details on the current sound file listed in the Name box, choose the Details button. This displays a variety of information about the sound file, including the audio format of the file, the length of the sound’s playback time, and any copyright information.
Sound Schemes
The easiest way to configure sounds in Windows NT is by choosing a sound scheme. Schemes are collections of sounds that have a coherent theme. When chosen, a scheme applies the theme’s various sound files to a number of different events at once. This gives your system the feeling of having an audio theme as different events are played while using Windows NT. Several sound schemes are included with Windows NT 4.0 (identical to the ones supplied with Windows 95) including the Windows Default, Musica, Jungle, Utopia, and Robotz sound schemes. Each of these schemes has a different feel to it, and you can experiment to see which schemes appeal to you.
Creating Custom Sound Schemes
So far, we’ve discussed two methods of configuring sounds in Windows NT: configuring each sound manually or choosing a sound scheme. However, you also can combine these two methods to create your own custom sound schemes.
To create a custom sound scheme, first choose the scheme you like the best, and then customize individual sound event mapping on a case-by-case basis. When you are done, you can save your custom scheme and give it a name. After configuring your sounds, choose the Save As button. Windows NT then prompts you for a name for the new scheme. In the future, this new scheme will be displayed in the list of scheme choices. To delete a scheme, select the scheme name in the Schemes box and choose the Delete button. Windows NT prompts you to confirm the deletion before the scheme is removed.
System
The Control Panel’s System applet lets you view and manage a variety of system-related aspects of your Windows NT computer, such as performance, hardware and user profiles, and general system information.
Windows NT 3.x users should note that the System applet has been expanded in version 4.0 to include a number of new controls. Windows 95 users will notice that the Windows NT System applet is very similar to the Windows 95 System applet, but with a few additional tabs in the Windows NT version and the exclusion of Windows 95’s Device Manager tab. The System applet is shown in Figure 5.60.
The System applet is divided into six tabbed sections: General, Performance, Environment, Startup/Shutdown, Hardware Profiles, and User Profiles.
General
The general tab shows basic information about your Windows NT system, including the version of Windows NT (the build number is the number displayed after 4.0), the registered owner’s name and organization name, the software’s serial number, and information about your computer such as CPU type and total amount of system RAM. Note that this information cannot be changed; it is for display only.
Performance
The Performance tab, as its name implies, lets you manage performance-related aspects of your Windows NT system. As you may recall from Chapter 1, one of the advantages of Windows NT is that it is a self-optimizing operating system and requires little or no adjustment to achieve excellent performance.
Even though the system is self-optimizing, you may still wish to adjust Windows NT’s performance, such as how Windows NT prioritizes the execution of foreground versus background applications. This can be adjusted using Application Performance section of the Performance tab. The Performance tab has a sliding bar with a settings range of None to Maximum. Set the bar to Maximum (the default setting) for the best response time for foreground applications. Set the bar to a mid-range setting to give background programs better response time but still give preference to the application running in the foreground. Setting the bar to None gives all programs (foreground and background) an equal amount of processor time.
The Virtual Memory section of the Performance tab lets you control the size of the Windows NT paging file, which is stored in a file (or files) called Pagefile.sys in a drive’s root folder. This window also displays the current total size of the system paging file. The paging file doesn’t have to be a single file; it can be multiple files stored across different hard disks and partitions. All of the currently defined paging files added together are collectively referred to as the Windows NT paging file.
The paging file is an extremely important aspect of the Windows NT operating system. It controls the amount of hard disk space that Windows NT uses as virtual memory (i.e., as if it were physical system RAM).
Special Note: In Windows NT, parts of your running applications are stored in RAM, and other parts are temporarily swapped to the paging file’s virtual memory. When the information on the paging file is required again, Windows NT swaps it back into RAM and, if necessary, swaps other information to the paging file. Managing RAM and the paging file is an important part of the Windows NT system’s performance. Even on systems with a large amount of real physical RAM, the paging file will be used.
To manage your Windows NT paging file, choose the Change button in the Virtual Memory section of the Performance tab. This displays the Virtual Memory dialog box, shown in Figure 5.61.
Special Note: You must be logged on as a member of the Administrators group to make changes to the Windows NT paging file.
This dialog box lets you control the paging file’s size and location. The top of the dialog box displays a window containing each of your system’s disk partitions and the current size of the paging file on each partition. During installation, Windows NT creates a paging file on one disk partition (usually your NT system partition), which is automatically set to the minimum recommended size if that amount of disk space is available. You may choose to enlarge the size of the paging file or spread the paging file across multiple disk partitions.
Tip: For best paging file performance, you should spread the paging file across multiple physical hard disks (not multiple partitions on the same disk, which doesn’t provide any advantage), preferably those that are not heavily accessed by other system functions. Also, whenever possible, set your paging file (or total of all paging files) to a minimum of 4 MB.
There are two aspects of the size of a paging file: Initial Size and Maximum Size. The Initial Size is the starting size of the paging file, which should be determined using the following formula: total physical RAM + 11 MB (this is the default set by Windows NT). Also, keep in mind that there is a minimum size requirement of approximately 22 MB for the Windows NT Workstation operating system. If system RAM plus 12 MB is less than 22 MB, you should increase the size of the paging file until the total of your system RAM plus the paging file size is at least 22 MB. This ensures that your paging file is at least a minimum size appropriate for your system.
Windows NT is also capable of dynamically adjusting the paging file size if necessary during the system’s operation. The Maximum Size setting is the largest size to which the paging file may grow. To change the size of either figure for a particular drive or to create a new paging file on a drive, choose the drive on which you wish to create or adjust a paging file, enter the numbers (in megabytes) in the appropriate boxes, and choose the Set button to implement the changes. The changes take effect immediately.
One final item that can be set using the Performance tab is the Windows NT System Registry size. As we have already learned, the registry is the Windows NT configuration database, which is the central location for virtually every setting for Windows NT and 32-bit Windows applications. This section of the window displays the current registry size and lets you set a Maximum Registry Size, which is the maximum size in megabytes that the registry will be allowed to occupy on the disk. Increasing this figure neither forces the registry to allocate this space nor guarantees that this much space will be available.
Caution: Setting the maximum System Registry size too small can cause your Windows NT Registry to become corrupt if the registry grows beyond the set limit. As a result, your Windows NT system may not start properly. To prevent this, monitor your current registry size on a regular basis and increase the maximum size whenever necessary.
Environment
The Environment tab lets you view and change Windows NT environment variables. MS-DOS users may remember that DOS provided commands such as the Set command for setting environment variables; Windows NT allows for a graphically-based configuration of such settings using the System applet.
When Windows NT boots, it also reads the currently defined environment variables (using DOS environment commands such as Set, Path, and so on) from the MS-DOS Autoexec.bat file (if one exists) to maintain compatibility with older applications on systems upgraded from DOS-based environments.
Tip for MS-DOS Users: If you are maintaining a dual-boot MS-DOS/Windows NT configuration, you should leave your DOS and Windows 16-bit application environment variables defined in Autoexec.bat; that way, the variables will be set properly regardless of which operating system you choose to boot.
Two types of environment variables are displayed here: System Variables and User Variables (for the current user). System variables are system-wide, user-independent settings, and user variables affect only the currently logged-on user.
To change either type of variable, simply click on the variable name, which will place the variable name and value in their respective boxes at the bottom of the window. You can then change the name or value for that variable. When done, choose the Set button. To completely delete a variable and its value, click the variable name and choose the Delete button.
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