Setting up a Windows 95/98 computer
When you receive a computer, either new or secondhand, it will usually have Windows already installed on it. Most likely it will be a "default" installation which is supposed to be suited to the home computer user, but is really designed to show off and promote Microsoft's latest commercial interests.
The default installation is not really suited to the home environment and it's certainly not suitable for training purposes, so below we describe the principles of setting up a Windows computer so that it is truly useful. The overall aim is to create a PC which has only the essential software installed, is easy to maintain and is set up in a way that will not confuse new users... take a deep breath.
Divide and rule
Hard drives can be divided up (logically, not physically) into different sections called partitions. Usually the folk who set up computers don't bother to create more than one partition because they're lazy and, since they're not going to use the computer themselves, they don't care. Or perhaps they're just ignorant. But having only a single partition on your hard drive is asking for trouble later on and it makes recovering from problems much more difficult.
If you have only one partition then everything has to go on it - the Windows program files, other program files, the documents that you create and any temporary files. If you subsequently have a bad system crash then you may have to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows from scratch - losing all your documents in the process! You might think this is unlikely, but in a classroom environment with inexperienced or mischievous students and an unreliable electricity supply it will happen all too often.
The simple way to avoid this problem is to create two partitions on the hard drive and store all your documents and other valuable files on the second one (D:) away from Windows and other program files on the first partition (C:). Unfortunately, the process of creating new partitions destroys all data on the hard drive (unless you buy special software), so it's best to do this before you start using the computer in earnest, otherwise you will have to back up all your data somewhere and then copy it back when you have finished.
Partitioning
First, create a "boot disk" using a Windows 95 machine and copy the files Fdisk.exe and Format.com from the Windows\Command folder to it. If you are using Windows 98 then make a Startup disk and these files will automatically be copied to it during the creation process. Read the help files if you need to learn how to make a Startup disk for your version of Windows.
Boot the PC off the floppy and you will find yourself at the Dos prompt (if you need to learn about Dos then read this lesson). Run Fdisk and delete the primary partition if there is one. At this point there is no going back as you have just deleted all data on the drive!
Decide how much space to allocate to the primary partition (C:) and how much to the secondary (D:). A typical Windows 95/98 installation will take up about 500MB, so I would suggest allowing around 800 MB for the primary partition (of course, if you have a big hard drive you can allow more space on C: for programs). When you have created it make sure you make it "active" so that you can boot from it later. Next, create an extended partition using all the remaining disk space and inside it create a single logical drive, again using all the available space. This becomes D: drive. Reboot the computer to finish the process (make sure you OK your way all the way out of Fdisk first) but don't take the floppy disk out yet - we want to reboot from it.
Formatting
Before you can use the drive you need to format the partitions, so run the Format program from the boot disk and format them both. When asked for a volume label it is a good idea to name them "primary" and "secondary" for easy identification later.