May 1, 1995 Using JP Software Products with Microsoft Windows 95 (Preview) This document explains JP Software's current product strategy for Windows 95 and answers a variety of common questions which Windows 95 Preview users have asked. To the best of our knowledge the comments in this document apply to Windows 95 Preview (build 347) and all subsequent builds through build 440. They may apply to subsequent builds as well, but have not been tested there. Windows 95 is a new version of Windows capable of running 32-bit applications. According to Microsoft it is due to be released sometime in 1995. The product is currently available to some users in a limited "preview" version. Windows 95 supports 16-bit real-mode DOS applications, "DOS-extended" applications, and 16-bit and 32-bit Windows applications. This means four JP Software products are theoretically compatible with Windows 95: Character-mode command processors: *4DOS 16-bit DOS 4DOS for Windows NT 32-bit Windows Windows (graphical) command processors: Take Command for Windows 16-bit Windows *Take Command/32 for Windows NT 32-bit Windows *After reviewing Windows 95 and the needs of our customers, we have decided to officially support two products under Windows 95: 4DOS and Take Command/32. We chose 4DOS because it offers full 16-bit DOS compatibility, including the ability to separately boot the "MS-DOS 7" portion of Windows 95, and will provide a complete character-mode command line when run from the Windows 95 GUI. 4DOS/NT will not be supported under Windows 95 because it offers no real advantage over 4DOS in this environment, and various problems in Windows 95 console mode support can make it difficult to use. Take Command/32 was chosen because it can take advantage of the new 32-bit Windows APIs, and offers more robust support for character-mode applications (DOS products and Windows NT console-mode products) than can currently be achieved with Take Command/16. The other two products will run under Windows 95, and will of course continue to be fully supported in their native environments (Windows NT for 4DOS/NT; Windows 3.1x for Take Command). The lack of support for these products under Windows 95 simply means that we do not recommend their use in that environment, and may not devote resources to solving compatibility problems that arise. We are considering the possibility of porting the "Caveman" technology currently available in Take Command/16 to the Windows 95 environment. No decision has been made on this and for now we feel that the console-mode support in Take Command/32 provides similar functionality which will accommodate the needs of most users. Caveman will continue to be supported under Windows 3.1x. If you choose to try 4DOS/NT under Windows 95 Preview you will find that it offers long filename support and works moderately well, but that there are quite a few glitches. Most of the glitches are due to bugs in the console-mode support in Win95 itself. If you choose to try Take Command for Windows under Windows 95 Preview you will probably find that it works quite well, but it does not support long filenames. We do not recommend installation of the CAVEMAN.386 VxD, though some users have reported that it does work. The following sections explain the use of 4DOS and Take Command/32 under Windows 95, and how to get support for these products while using the Windows 95 Preview. The Windows 95 Boot Sequence ---------------------------- In order to understand the different methods for installing 4DOS you may find it helpful to learn a little about the Windows 95 boot sequence (if you are not interested in these details, skip to the next section). Modified versions of the standard MS-DOS startup programs are used to boot Windows 95. These programs look for CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT just as under previous versions of MS-DOS. If CONFIG.SYS is not present, Windows 95 will load the appropriate real-mode DOS device drivers automatically, then start WIN.COM, which loads the Windows 32- bit drivers and GUI. If CONFIG.SYS is present, the MS-DOS startup portion of Windows 95 will process it (while displaying a graphical Windows 95 startup screen). Certain drivers required by Windows 95 (e.g. HIMEM.SYS) will be loaded automatically even if they are not listed in CONFIG.SYS, but otherwise CONFIG.SYS works just as it does under previous versions of MS-DOS (with the exception that multiple configuration menus within CONFIG.SYS apparently are not supported). If you use the default command processor, COMMAND.COM, it will be loaded automatically at the end of CONFIG.SYS if needed to process AUTOEXEC.BAT, then the GUI is loaded as described above. If you use a SHELL command in CONFIG.SYS to load a different command processor (like 4DOS), it will be loaded just as under previous versions of MS- DOS, and can then invoke the Windows GUI if desired (see below for details). However the SHELL command is ignored if AUTOEXEC.BAT is not present. Some aspects of the boot process are controlled by the file MSDOS.SYS, which is now an ASCII which functions as a .INI file for DOS itself. For example you can control whether the GUI is automatically loaded with the BootGUI setting in the [Options] section of MSDOS.SYS, and you can automatically display a standard startup options menu by setting BootMenu=1 in the [Options] section (you can also display this menu by pressing F8 when you see the "Starting Windows 95 ..." prompt). MSDOS.SYS is a hidden, system, read-only file; to edit it from 4DOS use a sequence like this: c:\> attrib -rhs msdos.sys c:\> edit msdos.sys c:\> attrib +rhs msdos.sys How Do I Run 4DOS Under Windows 95 Preview? ------------------------------------------- The simplest method is to create a new shortcut on the Windows 95 desktop. To do so click with mouse button 2 in any open area of the desktop. On the popup menu click New, then Shortcut. Fill in the drive and path for 4DOS.COM, and any other items you wish to set (no specific settings are required for 4DOS). Use the Change Icon button to assign the standard 4DOS icon, in the file 4DOS.ICO, to the shortcut. Once the shortcut is created 4DOS will start when you double-click the corresponding icon on the desktop. You can place any necessary commands or other directives (e.g. @ininame to name a specific INI file) on the startup command line just as you would under DOS or Windows 3.1. If 4DOS is started in this way, and is not installed as the primary shell started before Windows 95 (whether because you have no CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT and therefore do not load a primary shell, or because you use COMMAND.COM), it will not inherit aliases or other startup settings. In this case you must use the 4START file (see your 4DOS manual) to load aliases and perform other startup tasks. We recommend that you install 4DOS as the primary shell (see below) and load your aliases etc. at system startup, just as you would under DOS. We do not recommend the use of disk swapping under Windows 95. If you do use disk swapping aliases and other settings may not be inherited properly in some cases, especially when 4DOS is the primary shell. The best setup is to install 4DOS as the primary shell, and to use XMS swapping for all shells. You can set this swapping type with the following line in 4DOS.INI: Swapping = XMS 4DOS will not work properly if you load Windows 95 in "safe mode" (safe mode is for troubleshooting and is selected by pressing F5 during startup, or by pressing F8 and selecting a safe mode boot from the menu). How Do I Install 4DOS as the Primary Shell Under Windows 95 Preview? -------------------------------------------------------------------- The best way to configure 4DOS for the preview version of Windows 95 is to add a standard SHELL command as shown in the 4DOS manual to the end of the Windows 95 CONFIG.SYS file. For example: SHELL=C:\4DOS55\4DOS.COM C:\4DOS55 /P The second directory name and the /P should always be used. If you reinstall Windows 95 or install a later build over an earlier one, your SHELL line will be removed from CONFIG.SYS by the installation process. To correct this simply boot the new version, go to a 4DOS prompt (your desktop with its 4DOS icon is typically preserved when you upgrade), and use EDIT or another ASCII editor to put the SHELL line back in CONFIG.SYS. When 4DOS is loaded as the primary shell in CONFIG.SYS it will start and display a prompt; the Windows 95 GUI will no longer start automatically (regardless of the BootGUI setting in MSDOS.SYS). To start the GUI type WIN at the 4DOS prompt. To automate this process add the command WIN at the end of your AUTOEXEC.BAT file (remove this command if you return to a previous setup which does not use the SHELL command). We may add a 4DOS.INI option to start the GUI automatically (i.e. without an explicit WIN command in AUTOEXEC) in a future version of 4DOS. 4DOS will not work properly if you load Windows 95 in "safe mode" (safe mode is for troubleshooting and is selected by pressing F5 during the boot process, or by pressing F8 and selecting a safe mode boot from the menu). If you select other boot modes from the F8 menu (e.g. "step by step" or "command prompt only" modes) the 4DOS primary shell will load. The only exception is that if you select step by step mode and then answer "N" (or Esc) when prompted whether to process AUTOEXEC.BAT, the SHELL line will also be ignored and COMMAND.COM will be loaded rather than 4DOS (this is apparently a Windows 95 bug). Where Do I Install the KSTACK Program? -------------------------------------- If you want to load KSTACK.COM (required for the KEYSTACK command) it should be loaded separately for each 4DOS window. To do so, include the KSTACK command on the startup command line when you set up the corresponding shortcut(s). For example, the command line for your shortcut might read: c:\4dos55\4dos.com c:\4dos55\kstack.com This will load KSTACK when the 4DOS window is opened, then display a prompt. If you install KSTACK in AUTOEXEC.BAT it will not work properly when multiple 4DOS windows are open -- stacked keystrokes will "bleed through" from one window to another. Will 4DOS Support Files with Long File Names? --------------------------------------------- Windows 95 supports filename up to 255 characters long and which include spaces and other characters previously not allowed in filenames. Names which meet these restrictions but do not fit in the original DOS "8.3" naming convention (8 character name plus 3 character extension) are often called "long filenames". The current released version of 4DOS does not support long filenames under Windows 95 Preview (however the current version of Take Command/32 does support long filenames, see below for details). This feature will be added to a future 4DOS release. No specific date is available at this time but we expect this support to be available well before the release of Windows 95. 4DOS will properly handle all files on your disks which do not have long filenames. Files which do have long filenames will be visible from 4DOS, but you must refer to them by the corresponding short name provided by Windows 95. For example, a file with the long name "LETTERS9495.TXT" might appear in your directory as "LETTER~1.TXT" and would then have to be processed under that name in 4DOS (until a version is released with long filename support). Note that if you rename such a file with 4DOS the new name will overwrite the old long name, not just the shortened name visible under 4DOS. For example if you have the file LETTERS9495.TXT as described above, and it appears as LETTER~1.TXT in your 4DOS directory, the command: ren letter~1.txt let.txt will change the full name of the file to LET.TXT; the old long name of LETTERS9495.TXT will be lost. How Do I Run Take Command/32 Under Windows 95 Preview? ------------------------------------------------------ Simply install Take Command/32 just as you would any Windows application. The quickest method is to create a shortcut for TCMD32.EXE. The steps to do so are described above for 4DOS, and are the same for Take Command/32 except that the icon is built in and does not need to be assigned manually. Use the TCSTART.BTM file to load any aliases and perform any other startup commands. Take Command/32 fully supports long filenames just as it does under Windows NT, and as described in the Take Command/32 help files. The Take Command/32 documentation and help files describe it as a product "for Windows NT". However it runs properly under Windows 95 just as it does under Windows NT. Notes on Using Take Command/32 ------------------------------ When using the console window (accessible via Alt-V) to run or view output from DOS or Windows NT console applications, you may see the output disappear after the application has run. This is due to bugs in Windows 95's console mode support; in a future version of Take Command/32 we will include an internal workaround which eliminates this annoyance. You can make the output in the console window visible again at any time by running another console-mode program, and any program which waits for input will leave the preceding output visible as well. Because Windows 95 supports long filenames, DIR and SELECT use the long filename (HPFS / NTFS) display format by default. This format leaves more room for the file name and eliminates the file description. To use the old format which shows file descriptions, use the /Z switch for either command. You can make this switch the default with an alias, for example: alias dir *dir /z When the old format is used and the filename to be displayed is more than 12 characters long, the first 11 characters are displayed followed by a right "arrow" to show that the displayed name has been truncated. Support for 4DOS and Take Command/32 Under Windows 95 Preview ------------------------------------------------------------- Limited electronic support via public conferences is available for customers running 4DOS or Take Command/32 under Windows 95 Preview (full support will be available once Windows 95 is released). Telephone and private email support is not available at this time. To obtain support leave a message in our public support forum on CompuServe (GO PCVENB or GO JPSOFT, message section 10, JP Software). We will answer your message as time permits (typically within 1-2 business days). You may also leave a message in the 4DOS support conference on the RIME or ILink BBS networks, or in the Usenet comp.os.msdos.4dos newsgroup available via the Internet. We will answer such messages when we see them and as time permits, but we cannot promise to see or answer every message due to the complexities of the networks involved (this applies particularly to the Internet newsgroup). Please note that Windows 95 is a beta product which changes from build to build. We cannot be sure that the build(s) we are running will match yours or that we can test or fix problems which occur under any specific beta build of Windows 95. We do accept all problem reports and will answer questions to the best of our ability but we cannot promise specific responses or fixes for particular problems.