Gold Medal Software 2

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Text File | 1994-02-05 | 33KB | 701 lines

AA MM MM OOOO SSSS AAAA MMMM MMMM OO OO SS SS AA AA MM MMMMM MM OO OO SS SS AA AA MM MMM MM OO OO SS AA AA MM M MM OO OO SSS AAAAAAAA MM M MM OO OO SSS AA AA MM MM OO OO SS SS AA AA MM MM OO OO SS SS AA AA MM MM OOOO SSSS v1.20 Copenhagen, Denmark, 5. feb. 1994 About this document ─────────────────── This document is structured into several parts. * A Brief Introduction * A Word of Warning on the use of AMOS * Benefits of Registering AMOS * Information to Crackers wishing to look at AMOS * Disclaimer and Legal Matters * AMOS User's Guide * Noteworthy Quirks in AMOS * Future Plans for AMOS Releases * Registration/Support Sites Please refer to CONTENTS.TXT for a complete list of the files contained as a part of the AMOS archive. What is AMOS? ───────────── Short version: -------------- AMOS is a DOS-program, that enables you to read and write your HPFS-formatted harddisk drives from native DOS. Long version: ------------- AMOS is a DOS program for OS/2 users. For the program to have any value, you need to run an OS/2 system with at least one drive formatted using the HPFS file system. The HPFS file system is IBM's shot at a file system, the purpose of which is to replace the FAT file system, which is outdated, slow and gives only a small degree of data security. In spite of all the good things about HPFS, it has at least one major drawback: HPFS drives cannot be read or written from "real" DOS. Normally, this is no problem, since OS/2 takes care of all HPFS handling and maintenance. But in some situations, it would be very nice indeed to have at least some degree of access to your HPFS-drives from real DOS... For example: * You wish to install a patch for OS/2. This normally requires that you reboot the machine, using the two first disks of OS/2. Using AMOS, you simply boot DOS, either using a boot disk or Dual Boot/Boot Manager, and then copy the needed files. * You have made an error in OS/2's CONFIG.SYS. Sometimes, OS/2 simply halts the system with the annoying message "Please correct the error and restart the system". Without AMOS, you once again have to go through the tedious process of booting the two floppies, after which you discover that IBM has forgotten to supply a text-mode editor with OS/2. * Your youngest daughter unplugged the computer - and it takes half an hour for OS/2 to CHKDSK! Simply clear the dirty flag, and you are up and running... * You accidentialy deleted an important HPFS-partition using FDISK. Even if you immediately re-establish the partition, OS/2 cannot read data from the partition. Most of the time, AMOS can. * You deleted a partition. This caused the drive-letters to change, and since these are hardcoded into your CONFIG.SYS file, OS/2 cannot boot. Only option is to re-install, if OS/2 is located on HPFS. With AMOS, you simply correct the driveletters in CONFIG.SYS using the built-in editor. * Something has gone terribly wrong, and you simply cannot make OS/2 boot. All of your data reside on an inaccessible HPFS-drive, and you cannot get them away from your HPFS-drive. Use AMOS! * You simply want to play the newest DOS-game, a game that of course uses VCPI or some other weird DOS-extender that OS/2 doesn't like. Just start AMOS, and copy the desired files from your HPFS-drives to your FAT gaming partition... * You want to know more about your HPFS-drives. You might want to investigate EA's, harddisk fragmentation, file fragmentation, etc - and you don't want to spend several hundred $ on commercial programs less powerful than AMOS. * You want to CHKDSK your boot-drive. Normally, you would have to boot the install disks to do so - now, simply set the Dirty flag for the drive, and boot OS/2. A Word of Warning - Read This Carefully! ──────────────────────────────────────── AMOS is *NOT* perfect. What I have done in AMOS is to reverse engineer HPFS by looking at HPFS-drives, and deduct the format of HPFS-drives from that information. Since this is the case, something has most certainly slipped my attention - something that may cause you loss of data. Therefore, use AMOS for what it is made: An emergency tool. AMOS can be invaluable on the day where you would have lost all of your data, but if you use it in a production environment, use it with great care. Please refer to the section "Quirks in AMOS", as well as your DOS manual, for safe operation. Benefits of registering ─────────────────────── The unregistered version of AMOS can read your HPFS-drives, but can not make any changes on them. By registering, you get access to write functions for HPFS-drives as well. Most important: when you register, you can EDIT your CONFIG.SYS, even if it is located on a HPFS-drive. And of course you can clear the Dirt Flag on your HPFS drives as well! Further, the unregistered version has a delay of 10 seconds when you start it up. In the registered version, this delay is removed. Last, but not least, registering makes me keep the spirits high. If nobody registers, development of AMOS will of course cease... Information to crackers ─────────────────────── Most, if not all shareware utilities on the market today, are being "cracked" by some wise guys who do not wish to pay for their software. This section is devoted to this kind of people: * Do NOT try to patch AMOS - it's unique protection scheme makes patching impossible, and might endanger data on your hard drives. * Do NOT try to alter AMOS.EXE in any way; AMOS will probably detect this, and abort with an error message. * Do NOT distribute any altered versions of AMOS. When an unsuspecting user tries to register an altered version, AMOS refuses to register. If you have only a cracked version of AMOS, you can always get the newest version by download from the BBS, or by file requesting AMOS from the below mentioned systems. ! Some wise guy cracked an earlier version of AMOS. He only succeeded in removing the delay from the startup-sequence, and fortunately no harm has come from his attempt (As far as I know). I do, however, strongly advice against use of any such cracked copies of AMOS. After all, AMOS accesses your harddisk at the lowest level - one single byte of code changed by an incompetent (or unlucky!) cracker might spoil it! Register instead ;) Disclaimer and legal matters ──────────────────────────── The AMOS software and documentation is subject to the following licensing terms and conditions. * AMOS is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of the AMOS software. * AMOS is distributed as a "shareware program" and is provided at no charge to the user for evaluation for a period not extending 30 days, after which You are required to register. Feel free to share it with your friends, but please do not give it away altered or as part of another system. The essence of "user-supported" software is to provide personal computer users with quality software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive for programmers to continue to develop new products. * The distribution archive is to be considered an evaluation copy only. If you continue to use AMOS after a trial period of 30 days, please register. * The AMOS distribution package, all programs, the documentation and support files are copyrighted 1993-94 by Allan Mertner. All rights are reserved. You may copy this package for backup purposes. You may also copy and share unmodified copies of the whole distribution package, providing that the copyright notice is reproduced and included on all copies. * You may not sell the product for a fee and/or distribute the product along with other products without written permission, nor may you modify or remove the Copyright Notices from the programs or the documentation files. User clubs, if they are NOT commercial, are allowed to ask a small amount of money for distribution and storage when they want to share this package amongst their members. * It is expressively forbidden to modify, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile and/or disassemble the software in the AMOS package. Patching the medium at places that carry the software is seen as a program change and is also forbidden. * The registered software is licensed to run in conjunction with one user and one PC only. * Commercial installations are required to pay the commercial registration fee for AMOS. Please refer to Register.Doc. AMOS user's guide ───────────────── Introduction ------------ Basically, AMOS is a command shell like the one you know from DOS or OS/2. When you first start it, you get a command prompt that looks like the OS/2 prompt, and should look something like this: C:>AMOS [Enter] (AMOS Reads a lot of information) [C:\]_ Batch command feature --------------------- Invoking AMOS with a command as parameter, and optionally a preceding /C, makes AMOS invoke that command before returning either to the command line or DOS. Example 1: The DOS command AMOS Copy f:\txt\*.doc c:\temp starts AMOS, which then in turn executes the specified COPY command before awaiting further user-input. Example 2: The DOS command AMOS /C Dir f:\temp\*.wk3 starts AMOS, executes the DIR command showing all *.wk3-files on f:\temp, and returns to DOS. Using AMOS ---------- Sometime in the future, it is my plan to make AMOS a device driver, which simply mounts your HPFS-drives for use with DOS. Actually, work on the device driver is progressing pretty well... Do NOT try to make any write operations using AMOS in an OS/2 DOS box. OS/2 does not permit direct sector writes from DOS-boxes (Reports "Unknown function", which I find rather cute). If you do try, AMOS will kindly remind you that writes in DOS-boxes is not possible. All other functions do perform very well in DOS-boxes, though. For now, just use your normal DOS and OS/2 commands. DIR works. COPY, DEL and TYPE do as well. With OS/2 wildcards. Even EDIT works, given that the file you wish to edit is no larger than 30k (I made this primarily for CONFIG.SYS-editing). Try it out. If in doubt, try it anyway :-) AMOS Command Line Use --------------------- The command line in AMOS offers about the same capabilities as does DOS' DOSKEY. You can enter commands, and execute them by pressing [Enter] as usual. AMOS stores the last 2048 bytes of commands in a command buffer. By pressing the [Up] arrow, the commands of the buffer are read and displayed, and can be executed as usual. If you want to locate a specific command from the buffer, write some of the desired command, and press F8. AMOS then searches backwards in the buffer, until a command matching the entered command is found. Pressing F8 again locates the next command in the sequence, etc. For a list of the 20 last commands in the buffer, press F7. When you exit AMOS, the command buffer is saved to disc in the file AMOS.SAV. When next started, AMOS reloads the command buffer, and you don't have to enter all of your commands fra scratch again :-) Example, beginning with an empty buffer: On screen User input C:> AMOS [Enter] (AMOS starts up) [C:\] DIR E:\TXT [Enter] (Listing of files in E:\TXT) [C:\] CD TEST\DLL [Enter] [C:\TEST\DLL] CD \TEXT [Enter] AMOS Error 1: The path \TEXT does not exist. [C:\TEST\DLL] [Up Arrow] [C:\TEST\DLL]CD \TEXT (correct to CD TEXT, [Enter]) [C:\TEST\DLL\TEXT] DIR [F8] [C:\TEST\DLL\TEXT]DIR E:\TXT [Enter to accept command] (Listing of files in E:\TXT) [C:\TEST\DLL\TEXT] CD [F8] [C:\TEST\DLL\TEXT]CD TEST\DLL [F8] [C:\TEST\DLL\TEXT]CD \TEXT [Enter to accept command] [C:\TEXT] [F7] 1: CD \TEXT 2: DIR E:\TXT 3: CD TEXT 4: CD \TEXT 5: CD TEST\DLL 6: DIR E:\TXT [C:\TEXT] EXIT [Enter] (AMOS exits, saving command buffer) C:> AMOS Command Summary -------------------- Syntax Description ADDEA Arg EAName EAContents Adds a type STRING Extended Attribute to one or more files as specified in Arg. This can be useful for file descriptions, even though OS/2 doesn't do much to support EA's. Example: ADDEA * TestEA Hello There! Adds an EA named TestEA to all files in the current dir. Content of the EA will be "Hello There!". CD <Arg> Change Directory. Changes the current directory to Arg, if this is a valid directory. If not, AMOS will issue a cryptic error message. If you do not specify an argument, AMOS will tell you what the current directory is. Example: CD \TEST changes to the \TEST dir CD ..\TEST CD F: Show current dir on F: CLS Clears the screen COPY <A1 A2> Copies the file(s) A1 to the directory A2. It is possible to copy more than one file using wildcards, but it is NOT possible to copy to new filenames. With COPY, the /n-switch is valid, and reverses the file-selection. Example: COPY *.EXE C:\TEST copies all EXE-files to C:\TEST COPY *.TXT C:\ /n copies all but TXT-files to C:\ COPY F:* copies all files on F: to the current drive and directory DATE Shows current date, and lets you edit it. DIR <Arg> Displays a listing of files and directories. As in OS/2, you can specify a directory and/or wildcards as argument. DIR accepts some switches as well, some of which are unique to AMOS: /s lists all subdirectories as well /n reverses the file-selection /p pauses the listing when the screen is full /d shows directories only /f show fragmentation information (Both FAT and HPFS-volumes) Fragmentation occurs, when a file is not located in contiguous sectors on the hard disk, and the number shown is the number of sector-runs a particular file or directory occupies. Example: DIR *.EXE shows all EXE-files in current dir DIR *.EXE /n shows all but EXE-files DIR /d /n shows all files, and no directories DIR /f shows all files, including fragmen- tation information DIRTY <Arg> [ON | OFF] If run with only a drive as argument, the status of the dirty flag for that drive is displayed. Using the ON or OFF options resets/sets the dirty flag. Drives having the dirty flag set are CHKDSK'ed by OS/2 at boot time, if they are named in the AUTOCHECK option of either HPFS or FAT in the CONFIG.SYS file. Resetting the dirty flag is useful, when OS/2 crashes, or you accidentially press the reset button. You can then reset the dirty flag for all drives except your boot-drive, and boot OS/2. You are then up and running, and can CHKDSK the rest of your drives manually, if you think there might be allocation errors on them. Use this feature with care - there *is* a reason why the dirty flag cannot normally be reset from DOS :-) Example: DIRTY E: Shows status of dirty flag for E: DIRTY E: OFF Resets the dirty flag for E: DEL <Arg> Deletes files specified as argument. Wildcards valid. Please note, that AMOS asks for *NO* confirmation, even if you write "DEL *"! If you write DEL name, where name is a directory, all files in that directory will be erased. No asking. You can use /n with DEL to reverse file selections. Example: DEL *.EXE Remove all EXE-files DEL C:\*.EXE /n Remove all but EXE-files on C:\ DEL E:\OS2 Remove the file E:\OS2. If E:\OS2 is a directory, remove ALL files in that directory. EA <Arg> [/p] Shows Extended Attributes defined for file(s) specified as Arg. The listing includes the names and types of all EA's defined for the file/directory, together with the value of the EA. If the EA is long, only the first bytes are shown. Under OS/2, the command works on HPFS drives only, since FAT EA's are stored in the file "EA DATA. SF". OS/2 locks this file for both reads and writes. If you specify the /p-option, AMOS prompts for a key every time the screen is full. Example: EA E:\* Shows a list of all files and dirs having associated EA's, like this: Entry Icons : .ICONPOS [Binary] 47 02 FF 7F 00 00 FF 7F 00 00 00 15 [573 not shown] .CLASSINFO [Binary] DC 00 90 00 00 00 CB 00 00 00 57 50 [210 not shown] .LONGNAME [String] Icons .ICON [Icon ] F2 03 42 41 5C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 [1000 not shown] Entry Nowhere : .CLASSINFO [Binary] CC 00 80 02 00 00 BB 00 00 00 57 50 [194 not shown] .LONGNAME [String] Nowhere Entry OS2KRNL : .APPTYPE [Binary] 04 00 00 00 10 40 .TYPE [String] Executable As can be seen from the above example, long EA's are not displayed in their entirety. The number following the first few bytes of the EA refers to the number of bytes not shown. EDIT <Arg> Starts the internal textfile-editor on the file specified as argument. The editor is a simple fullscreen editor, with only the most basic of editing functions - enough for CONFIG.SYS. It is not possible to create a new file using EDIT - you can only edit existing files. Editor keys: ESC Exits the editor. Cursor keys Moves the cursor around the screen :-) PgUp Advance cursor one page PgDn One page back Home Go to start of line End Go to end of line Ctrl-PgUp Goes to top of file Ctrl-PgDn Goes to end of file Ctrl-Left Word left Ctrl-Right Word right When you press ESC to exit the editor, you will be asked if you want to save the changes (y), discard them (n), or return to the editor (ESC). EXIT Exits from AMOS to DOS, saving the command buffer. FREE <D:> <Lvl> Shows a freespace map of the current drive. Using this feature, you can get an overview of the level of freespace fragmentation on the drive. This feature also works for FAT drives. The first argument is the desired drive-letter; the second is an inverse magnification factor M between 0 and 10. When using an M-factor of 0, one character in the map represents 8 sectors on the disk, when M=1, one character equals 16 sectors, etc. When M=10, information on 8192 sectors are represented in one character. If you supply no parameter, AMOS will prompt you for a magnification factor. Example: FREE D: 4 FREE 8 [E:\]free D: 8 Free space map of drive D: One character represents 2048 sectors "█" represents all used, "·" all free... ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒████▒▒█▒▒▒█▒█▒█░▒░▒···▒▒▒█████▒█▒▒▒███▒██▒█▒▒▒█▒█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒████▒▒│ │▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒▒███▒█▒▒▒▒░·░···▒██████▒▒▒······▒······░██████▒▒░······░│ │░·······░······░░·······░······░░·······░······░░·······░······░│ │░·······░······░░·······░······░░·······░ │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ In the example output shown above, a magnification of 8 is chosen - else the example would have taken up a bit more of space. The dotted (.) spaces represent 2048 consecutive free sectors, and the filled spaces (█) represent blocks of 2048 sectors all used. The ones in between shows that some of the sectors are occupied. HELP Shows a short description of all available commands. MAP Shows a listing of all partitions. The list includes the type of each drive, current directory, total drive space and free space. For HPFS drives, the time of the last CHKDSK operation is noted as well. Last, but not least, the status of the Dirty flag is displayed for each drive. Example: MAP on my machine gives the following output: MAP : Partition information on 5 partitions on 1 physical harddrives Drive Size/kB Free/kB Type Last CHKDSK /F Dirty C:\ 118,668 77,086 BIGDOS n/a for FAT YES D:\TEST 8,001 7,621 HPFS Never YES E:\OS2\DLL 160,618 31,242 HPFS 4-02-94 17.18 YES F:\ 1,349,428 53,001 HPFS 3-02-94 0.03 NO G:\BINKLEY 208,813 40,596 HPFS 4-02-94 16.56 YES AMOS says "Never" to Last CHKDSK /F date, if the drive has not been CHKDSK'ed since it was formatted HPFS. MD <Arg> Makes a new directory. The opration will not succeed, if there is already a file of the same name in the directory where you want to create a new directory. Example: MD C:\TEST Makes the dir TEST on C:\ MD HELLO Makes the dir HELLO in the current directory. RD <Arg> Removes the directory <Arg>, if <Arg> is a valid, empty directory. If not, AMOS tries to explain what went wrong. Example: RD C:\DOS Removes C:\DOS RD TEST Removes TEST RD OS2* Error message: Wildcards not allowed. REMEA <File EA> Removes one or more EA's from one or more files/directories. Handy for cleaning up EA's that you no longer want. No wildcard parsing is performed - you must either specify one EA-name, or * for all EA's. Example: REMEA * .ICON Removes .ICON EA from all files REMEA * * Removes all EA's from all files REMEA *.TXT .ICON Removes .ICON EA from all .TXT-files TOUCH <Arg> Sets the file date and time for all files and directories matched by <Arg> to current time. This command works with HPFS drives only. Switches to use with TOUCH: /n Reverses the file-selection /d Selects directories only TREE <Arg> Shows a list of all directories from and below <Arg>. Abort by pressing <ESC>. Example: [C:\OS2\DLL]tree 139 files: C:\OS2\DLL 2 files: C:\OS2\DLL\DISPLAY 3 files: C:\OS2\DLL\IBMNULL 5 files: C:\OS2\DLL\HP 44 files: C:\OS2\DLL\HP\PCL 3 files: C:\OS2\DLL\HP\PCL\LASERJET 4 files: C:\OS2\DLL\PLOTTERS Total files in listed directories: 200 file(s) 10,546,247 bytes used TIME Shows current time in an editable format. Allows you to change system time... TYPE <Arg> </p> Types all files matching <Arg> to the screen. Use with textfiles only, since all other files look weird on the display. Abort the listing by pressing <ESC>. Example: TYPE C:\*CON* makes AMOS type both CONFIG.SYS, CONFIG.BAK and TESTCON.EXE on drive C:\. If you specify the /p-option, the display pauses every time the screen is full. VER Shows the current version of AMOS. WIPE Wipes all free sectors on the disk, writing "HPFSWipe" in all unoccupied bytes. I use this primarily for test reasons, but is quite useful for data security. WIPE functions only on HPFS drives, and only in the registered version. IF you use WIPE, be SURE that you make a CHKDSK /F before you do so! AMOS can NOT handle allocation errors when wiping. <Drive>: Changes to a new drive. If the drive is not either a floppy drive or a harddisk drive, AMOS will try to give you a decent error message. Example: F: Change to F: I: AMOS error: Drive I: is not a valid harddisk drive. Quirks in AMOS ────────────── * Freespace On FAT drives, AMOS asks DOS how much space is free, so I suppose that no errors should occur here. On HPFS-drives, I have been unable to find out how much available space there is. However, I do have a method of finding out which sectors are occupied and which are not, so I simply count these. Since OS/2 reserves some of this space for directory information and the like, this gives a number a bit higher than the one OS/2 reports. * Addressing directories An ambiguity can occur, when addressing directories. Given a directory TEST on drive E:, how would you interpret the following commands: 1 : DIR TEST 2 : DIR T*ST 3 : REMEA TEST * 4 : REMEA T*ST * 5 : REMEA TEST\* * 6 : DEL TEST Since TEST is a directory, AMOS (as does DOS) assumes that the commands 1, 3, 5 and 6 are directed against the content of the TEST directory. Thus, 6 would delete all files in TEST, 3 would remove all Extended Attributes associated with files in TEST, and 1 would show all files in TEST. However, when a wildcard is specified, the directory itself is meant, since you cannot address more than one directory using one command. Command 4 would remove all EA's associated with the directory TEST itself (as well as those associated with other wildcard matches, like TOAST), and 2 would show a list of all these directories and files. Be careful out there! * Many files Problems may occur when reading or writing huge directories - by huge I mean dir's with more than 4000 files! This is a gray area, since it seems that OS/2 also has problems when handling such structures... * Low on diskspace Beware of low diskspace! Since AMOS reports every single free byte on the disk, COPYing files that only just fit may result in an error. HPFS uses heaps of information on every file, meaning that each file has a slight overhead in disk space consumption. COPYing a 4 byte file typically uses 1024 bytes or even more! * Legal characters in file/dir-names No checking of valid filenames is performed. Thus, you could create a directory named "/!' !..," and AMOS wouldn't complain. OS/2 will, though - be sure of that! Example: With AMOS, you can create a directory named "HI OS2" by typing MD HI OS2 on the command line. This even works on a FAT drive! OS/2 has no objections to this, but DOS has! This directory cannot be accessed from DOS, nor can it be accessed from an OS/2 DOS box. * Trouble accessing files with spaces in the name Setting "'s around filenames in is not supported in AMOS. Thus, you cannot COPY such files as easily as under OS/2. It _is_ possible, though: COPY F:HELLO MATE copies the file "HELLO MATE" from drive F: to the current drive. * Attribute support AMOS does not respect the DOS or HPFS attributes "System", "Hidden", and "Read Only". No confirmation is asked for when deleting/modifying files with one or more of these attributes set, nor are Hidden files treated in any special way. Future releases of AMOS ─────────────────────── At the moment, I have the following plans for AMOS releases. A total lack of registrations probably cancels the plan, though. Users having registered AMOS v1.x are entitled to free upgrades. A small handling fee is charged for sending you a new registration-file. 1st Quarter 1994: AMOS v1.x: These will be more bugfix-releases, with more extras added. Look forward for a sector-editor, an EA-editor, and maybe even a FAT <-> HPFS converter. 3rd Quarter, 1994: AMOS v2.x: AMOS in a device driver/TSR version. This version will (hopefully) enable you to mount HPFS-drives as "normal" drives, using them as normal drives. Since this actually is not as simple as it may sound, the release date is a ... guess! AMOS v2.x will cost at least the same as does AMOS v1.x. Users having registered AMOS v1.x will be charged an upgrade fee for AMOS v2.x. Support site information ───────────────────────────── Allan Mertner Enghavevej 20A, 2tv DK-1674 Copenhagen V Denmark I can be contacted through the following networks and node numbers: FidoNet : 2:234/107 2:234/156 2:234/157 2:234/158 OS2Net : 81:445/14 CryptoNet : 70:450/0 CompuServe : 100327,2035 AMOS registration ID : 1808 Rainbow BBS: BBS Line 1 : +45-3325-7322 (ZyXEL 19k2 / v32bis) BBS Line 2 : +45-3325-7321 (v32bis) BBS Line 3 : +45-3325-7320 (HST 16k8 / v22bis) BBS Line 4 : +45-3325-7319 (ZyXEL 19k2 / v32bis) Acknowledgements ──────────────── First of all, I'd like to say a big thanks to my brother Morten, without whose harddisk and patience AMOS would never have been released. If you think that you are unlucky because your harddisk always goes down on you, take a moment to think of Morten. Every time I have developed a new fancy feature in AMOS, particularly in the early staged of the project, Morten volunteered for testing. Mostly, the results were fatal, and a reinstallation of OS/2 was necessary. I don't really know why he's still in - but he's still my beta tester :-) Thanks!