Even though you can format floppy disks from within Windows Explorer or My Computer, it's better to format them from a DOS prompt. The reason being that Windows 98 will be able to multitask better when the format operation is occurring in an MS-DOS Prompt window than when it occurs in Windows Explorer or My Computer. In other words, you'll be able to run other applications better while the floppy disk is being formatted in the background.

ZD Tips

If you like using the Quick Launch toolbar but wish that it didn't take up room on the taskbar, you'll be glad to know that you can easily move the Quick Launch toolbar to any other location on the desktop. To do so, simply position your mouse pointer over the vertical bar on the left edge of the Quick Launch toolbar. When your cursor turns into a double headed arrow, just drag the Quick Launch toolbar to any location on the desktop. You can anchor it to the top, left, or right edge of the desktop. Once you have it positioned where you want, you can then right-click on the toolbar and select the Always on Top command so that you can always access the Quick Launch toolbar just like you can the taskbar.

Inside Microsoft Windows 98

As you probably know, you can right-click on any drive icon in Windows' My Computer window, select Properties from the context menu, and see a graphical display of the used and free space on that disk. However, if you have multiple disk drives, performing this operation on each one can be time consuming. Fortunately, Windows can display the same information about all your disk drives in one tabbed properties sheet. Here's how: Open My Computer, select all the disk drives that show up in the window, right-click on the last one, and select Properties from the context menu. This technique can be used with network drives, removable disk drives, and floppy disk drives as well.

ZD Journal's Inside Microsoft Windows journal