and don't forget the quotation marks. Print both DIR-MAP.TXT and PROGLIST.TXT and keep both of them with the earlier printout. Update all of the above periodically as the information, programs, and settings on your computer change.

Finding the specifications about your particular machine might not be so easy. Here's some help. (Don't know what some of these things are? That's covered later.)

You need to know the type of CPU you have (Pentium II, AMD K6, whatever) and the clock speed (for example, 350MHz). The packaging from your computer usually displays this somewhere; if you've tossed that out, look in your manual. You might be able to get some info from your BIOS Setup screen -- when you start your computer, it will tell you to hit a certain key to enter Setup. Hit that key quickly and poke around in the various screens. When you've found what you need, exit without saving any changes (important!). You may also find this info in My Computer -- enter Properties as detailed above and look around the screen. You can always call the manufacturer.

Find out how much RAM you have by going into Control Panel, clicking on System, and looking under the General tab.

You need to know the maximum storage capacity of your hard drive(s), the number of partitions (formatted divisions of a drive that have their own drive letters; most home users don't do this), the amount of used and unused space on each drive, the drive's file system, and the method of interface used by the drive. Some of this can be gleaned through use of the DOS command FDISK. Go to the MS-DOS prompt under Start/Programs, and at C: (or whatever letter your drive has been assigned), type FDISK. Now press the 4 key to review partition information. You get lots of cryptic info about partitioning, file systems used, partition size, and percentage of disk space consumed by each partition. For used and unused space, double-click My Computer, right-click in the drive or partition you want to know about, and choose Properties. The pink and blue pie graph will tell you how much used and unused space there is. The last bit of info, interface type, isn't easy to come by. Unless you're using a pretty high-end PC, you're probably using an IDE/ATA drive. If you're driving a top-of-the-line model, you might have a SCSI interface. Check your users manual.

Most Win95 and 98-compatible PCs sold these days have one 3.5" disk drive, although there are plenty of old twin-drive models still chugging away out there. Your Win 9x computer should run 3.5 disks with 1.44MB capacities, but if you're operating some ancient hellish hybrid that's had Win95 grafted onto it, try entering MSD at the C: prompt and pressing D.

Find out the manufacturer of your CD drive and its maximum speed ($x, 24x, whatever) from the users manual or by calling the PC manufacturer.

You might have a Zip drive, an LS-120, or whatever as an additional storage medium. You ought to know what kind of disks, tapes, or cartridges they use, and what kind of interface they use. The drive's users manual should tell you what you need to know here. Also, check what port it uses to connect to your PC: is it a 25-pin parallel port, a 50-pin SCSI port, or a USB port? If you don't know and the manual doesn't tell you, ask the resident geek.

Most home users use a modem to connect to the Internet, while most business users are connected through some sort of LAN device such as an Ethernet system. For LAN users, ask the technical person. For modems, find out the manufacturer, the model number, and the maximum transmission speed by flipping through the manual. If you're using an internal modem installed at the factory by your manufacturer, you might have to give those guys a call. External modems connect either to a 9-pin serial port, a 25-pin parallel port, or a USB port. To find out what COM port your modem uses, open Control Panel, click Modems, and in the Modem Properties dialog box, click the Diagnostics tab. Whichever COM port you're using will have the modem listed next to it.

This can be a headache. Does your video card connect directly to the motherboard or does it connect through the monitor? If you bought an off-the-rack PC, most likely your video card sits on the motherboard; if you've upgraded or your system is relatively high-end, you may have a separate card. At any rate, you can find out some specs by right-clicking the Desktop, choosing Properties, choosing the Settings tab, and clicking the Advanced Configuration or Change Display button. Choose the Adapter tab and look for the name of your video card (it may be called a video adapter), the manufacturer, and, if listed, the amount of built-in memory. For the amount of VRAM, if any, your card has, you'll need to scope the manual. If you've installed a new video card and you've installed the wrong driver, your screen may come up blank. Reboot Windows and hold down the F8 key. Windows will start up with a generic driver, allowing you to delete the wrong driver and add in the correct one.

Again, you may have any of a number of sound card types. You should know the manufacturer and model number, whether it supports Sound Blaster and General MIDI standards, if it plays audio files in 44.1KHz stereo, supports your CD-ROM interface, employs FM synthesis or Wavetable synthesis, and is capable of playing 8-bit or 16-bit sound. Whew! Again, your manual or your manufacturer's technical support line may be your best bet.

Do you run a TV tuner card, an FM receiver card, or some other exotic multimedia device? Find out the usual info from the manual or the manufacturer's hotline.

What size is your monitor, 15-inch, 17, 19, 21, or a true behemoth? Is is a CRT (found on most desktops) or an LCD (found on portables, but coming soon to a desktop near you)? Who made it? What's its dot pitch? Refresh rate? Maximum resolution? VGA or SVGA? Active-matrix or passive-matrix? Take a Prozac and dive into your manual.

Most of us use the standard flat keyboard and mouse to input our data or blow away the Klingons. If your keyboard and mouse (or trackball or whatever) isn't made by the PC manufacturer, you should find out who made them and what models they are. Oftentimes this info is on the bottom of the keyboards and/or pointing devices. How do they connect? Most modern devices use either a PS/2 port or a supermodern USB port, but a few older jobs use a 9-pin serial connection. Ask the same guy you had to ask before.

I'm not talking about your copies of Tomb Raider or Office 2000, I'm referring to two things: your BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) and your OS (if you're reading this, probably Windows 9x). Learn your BIOS version by going through the BIOS setup screen discussed above. As for your Win 9x version, there's a whole section about which version you're running later on in this site...it's that complicated.

If you have a scanner, you should know if it's a flatbed, sheetfed, or handheld model. Your printer is either a dot-matrix, inkjet, or laser. You need manufacturers and model numbers for these devices. Find out which LPT port your printer is connected to (probably LPT1, but verify), and how much memory, if any, your printer possesses. Again, you need to hit the manuals, but you can find some of this through Control Panel's Printer applet. Double-click the Printer icon, right-click your printer, and choose Properties from the pop-up menu. Find the name of the printer and its port by clicking the General and the Details tabs respectively.

You may want to use this specifications form to jot down your information. Just print it and fill in the blanks as directed above.

The System Properties sheet in My Computer can be customized to give us the information we need most. Start the customization process by accessing the OEMINFO.INI file in the Windows System folder (Win NT users can find this in the System32 folder). Copy it to another folder as a backup. A few of us won't have an OEMINFO.INI file; these folks can create their own. Double-click the file to open it in Notepad or your default text editor (or open a new file in Notepad if you don't have the file). All .INI files like this one put their section heading names in [brackets]. The first section to edit is called simply [General]. (If you're creating a new OEMINFO.INI file, just create the sections as we go through this procedure.) You'll see two lines, Manufacturer= and Model= . These lines should include the manufacturer and model number of your computer; if they don't, add that info. You don't have a lot of room, so choose wisely. In the [Support Information] section, you should find several entries beginning with Line 1=, Line 2=, and so on. On these lines, you can add invoice numbers, dates of purchase, warranty info, etc. Keep the lines short enough so you don't invoke the horizontal scroll bars or word wrap. To add a space between lines, type a line number, but keep the area to the right of the equal sign empty. You can create an indent by enclosing everything after the equal sign in quotation marks and then adding spaces inside the quote marks to move text to the right. Save the changes and take a look in My Computer's System Properties by right-clicking My Computer and choosing the Properties tab. Other info that can be kept in here include passwords or password clues -- well, actually, you can include anything you want, but we're attempting to be somewhat useful here.