While the following guide is prepared on Windows Millennium, much of the guide is applicable to Windows 9x also. For the most part the differences between Windows 9x & Millennium Edition are minimal, or just plain cosmetic, e.g. different icons. When any large discrepancies exist they will be noted however.

The tweaks below will help you improve your Windows 9x/Millennium performance.

Update

First things first, update the Operating System. This will ensure you have better-optimized components/files, bug fixes, security updates & so on. I suggest using a combination of Windowsupdate, Updates & CNET Catchup (My personal favourite). This way you're bound to find any updateable components. Install them as appropriate.

You should also check out our OS Updates page which has links to, & installation order of all current Windows Millennium Edition patches.

1 fairly essential update is that to Internet Explorer 5.5 (Included with Millennium Edition). This includes many fixes & optimisations & updates several online components.

“Missing” VXD’s

Like previous versions of Windows 9x, Millennium Edition supposedly “suffers” from the same Missing VXD’s installation problem of “missing” VXD’s (When it actually isn’t a problem). The VMM32.VXD file is a combination of these “missing”, & many others. To see what I mean, click on Start, Run, type regedit & hit Enter. Go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\VMM32Files]. Listed here are the files that make up VMM32.VXD.

Right click on My Computer select Properties. Click the Device Manager tab. Open any Device category, e.g. Modem, then double click on the device listed there. When opened select the Driver tab then the Driver File Details button (Some devices may have this option greyed out so skip onto another one). What you are looking for is any bracketed, (), files. Below is an example of you are trying to find.

In this case the vcomm.vxd is bracketed. This essentially means that vcomm.vxd is one of the driver files being used by a device, although it being obtained/loaded via the VMM32.VXD.

Basically the point of this is that you do not need to extract any VXD’s from *.cab files & copy them into the WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32. The files never were missing in the first place.

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