Tech Arsenal 1/Tech Arsenal (Arsenal Computer).ISO/tek-07/blts893.zip/DRDOS6.TXT

Text File | 1993-04-21 | 18KB | 385 lines

LANtastic Network Operating System version 4 Compatibility Bulletin


Product Reviewed: DR DOS v6.0 by Digital Research Inc.
Classification: Operating Systems
Date: 4/10/93
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Compatibility Statement:
DR DOS version 6.0 is compatible with LANtastic NOS version 4.xx.

Product Overview:
DR DOS v6.0 is an operating system for 8088- and 80x86-based
personal computers. It is similar to Microsoft's MS-DOS v5.0 and
supports similar characteristics as well as providing its own
extended features. A partial list of features includes: Upper
Memory Area (UMA) and EMS support; the ability to load DOS into the
High Memory Area (HMA); on-line command help; disk caching and on-
the-fly file compression utilities; a task switcher; disk and file
recovery utilities; and support for hard disk partitions up to 2
GB. In addition, DR DOS-based and MS-DOS-based workstations and
servers can co-exist on the same LAN.

Test Equipment Configuration:
The following machines were used for DR DOS 6.0 testing. All
machines use Artisoft AE-2 NICs. Testing was completed using
LANtastic NOS v4.0 with AILANBIO.EXE and AE2.EXE v2.03. Machines
running as LANtastic peer-to-peer servers are designated by (S).

o    Tandon 486/33: 486DX/33, DR DOS 6.0 (S)
o    Northgate 386: 386DX/20, DR DOS 6.0 (S)
o    CompuAdd 220: 286/20, DR DOS 6.0 (S)
o    CompuAdd 333: 386DX/33, MS-DOS 5.0 (S)
o    Clone 286: 286/12, MS-DOS 3.3

Additionally, the Tandon 486 was configured with a SuperStor-ed C:
partition and ran the Super PC Kwik disk caching software during
the majority of the testing.

Product Installation Notes:
Installing DR DOS is easily done via a menu driven interface. You
must boot the PC with the DR DOS installation diskette in the A:
drive and then follow the on-screen instructions for configuration.
During installation, you can also save the old operating system for
later use by the UNINSTAL command. The following is an overview of
each feature presented during installation and its compatibility
with LANtastic NOS. For full details on each feature, refer to the
"DR DOS User Guide."

MemoryMAX: Provides support for HMA, UMA, and EMS services on
machines with 286 or higher CPUs. All services in this area may be
used in conjunction with LANtastic. See the "Product Execution
Notes" section below for further details.

TaskMAX: Installs/configures the TaskMAX task switcher and
optionally modifies the AUTOEXEC.BAT to load it at boot time.
TaskMAX can be used on either a LANtastic server or a workstation
since it is not a true multi- tasker. Note that disk redirections
made before starting TaskMAX will be available to all tasks, while
those made within a particular task will be accessible only within
that task. Printer redirections made within any task are available
to all tasks.

DiskMAX: Furnishes support for virtual disks, disk caching,
deletion tracking, and on-the-fly disk data compression. All of
these features may be used with LANtastic 4.0 with the following
exceptions:


1)   The Super PC Kwik caching utility must be configured with
     delayed   write caching disabled if you intend to run it and
     the LANtastic SERVER program on the same machine. This cannot
     be done while running the DR DOS installation routine, but
     must be done before starting the LANtastic SERVER program. See
     the "Compatibility Notes" section below for details.
2)   The DELWATCH utility may not be used to monitor deletions on
     network drives or on a machine running SERVER. It should work
     correctly on the local disk drive of a workstation, however.
     DISKMAP may be used on the local drive of either a server or
     a workstation, but will not work on a network drive.

3)   Before enabling data compression via the SuperStor device
     driver in conjunction with LANtastic, Artisoft and Digital
     Research recommend that you obtain Technical Tip #1200 from
     Digital Research. See the "Product Execution Notes" section
     below for further information.

ViewMAX: Supplies a graphical interface to DR DOS and optionally
configures it to load at boot time. This may be used on either a
workstation or a server.

Country and Keyboard: Users in the United States should not change
this setting from its default value or LANtastic will not run. If
you need an international keyboard driver for an installation in
the U.S., contact the Artisoft Sales Department for information on
obtaining an international version of LANtastic.

System Parameters: Allows you to configure and customize CONFIG.SYS
and AUTOEXEC.BAT parameters. See the "LANtastic Network Operating
System Reference Manual" for Artisoft's recommendations regarding
these settings.

Optional Device Drivers and Utilities: The "GRAFTABL display
support" and the "Code page switching" options may not be used on
U.S. installations. However, you may use all other settings in this
section with LANtastic. On machines that are configured as servers,
it is mandatory that you enable the "File sharing support
(SHARE.EXE)" option in order to support DOS file and record
locking. Determining the number of concurrent file locks for SHARE
by approximating the maximum number of files all users logging into
this server will have open at one time.

Security: This optionally enables a security feature that requires
a user to enter a password each time the computer is booted before
any access to files or programs is allowed. You may use this
feature with LANtastic.

You may modify any of the above options once the installation
program has completed and the machine has been rebooted by running
the SETUP program at the DOS prompt.

Product Execution Notes:
The DR DOS commands and command line interface are essentially
identical to those provided by MS-DOS. Some of the more technical
issues relate to DR DOS' memory management and how it interacts
with the LANtastic software. This section is not intended to
completely describe all functions of DR DOS memory management, but
to provide an overview for experienced DOS and LANtastic users. For
further information regarding memory management, refer to chapter
12 of the DR DOS User Guide.

The Memory Managers

Memory management in DR DOS is provided by a set of programs
collectively referred to as MemoryMAX. To use MemoryMAX functions,
a machine must have a 286 or greater processor and at least 1MB of
memory. On a 286 machine, the HIDOS.SYS driver can be used to
relocate the DR DOS kernel to the High Memory Area (HMA, the first
64K above 1MB). On machines that support shadow RAM (generally
machines with Chips and Technologies NeAT or LeAPSet chip sets), it
can also provide Upper Memory (the UMA, available RAM addresses
between 640K and 1MB) which can be used as space to load device
drivers, some operating system data, and TSR programs. If the
machine also has extended memory (above 1MB), HIDOS.SYS also
provides eXtended Memory Specification (XMS) memory mangement.

On a machine with a 386 or greater processor, the EMM386.SYS driver
can be used to provide LIM EMS 4.0 support; relocate the DR DOS
kernel to the UMA or HMA; provide UMA for DOS data, TSRs and device
drivers; and copy ROM to RAM for increased performance. In general,
the DR DOS INSTALL program will detect which drivers to load and
which options the drivers are able to provide on a specific
machine, as well as allowing the user to change or fine-tune the
driver settings.

Loading LANtastic into the UMA:
Once DR DOS is booted and the memory manager is running, it is
possible to load the LANtastic NOS 4.0 TSR programs (for example,
LANBIOS2, AE2  or AEX, AILANBIO, REDIR, SERVER, LANPUP, and
LANCache) into upper memory utilizing the HILOAD command, provided
that there is enough available RAM in the UMA. For example, the
following batch file could be used to start the LAN:

     MEMMAX +U
     HILOAD AEX IOBASE=340
     HILOAD AILANBIO
     HILOAD REDIR MYSERVER
     HILOAD LANCACHE /TYPE=XMS
     HILOAD SERVER
     MEMMAX -U

The command MEMMAX +U is used to "open" upper memory so that HILOAD
can access that memory. The MEMMAX -U command at the end of the
batch file then "closes" upper memory. Note that the DR DOS INSTALL
and SETUP programs automatically close the UMA by default. HILOAD
will load a program into UMA if it determines there is a large
enough block available for the program, otherwise it loads the
program into base memory. Unfortunately, HILOAD does not report
where it actually loads a program, but DR DOS provides the MEM
command that you can use to determine where a TSR has loaded. MEM
/U is used to view the status of upper memory, while MEM /B will
display the state of base memory.

Using LANtastic's LANCache with MemoryMAX and SpeedStor: LANCache
versions 2.14 and higher began shipping with LANtastic NOS version
4.0 and can use XMS memory for caching. On 286 machines that use
the HIDOS.SYS driver, LANCache will require that you specify the
type of memory for it to use, for example:

     LANCACHE /TYPE=XMS

On 386 and higher machines on which EMM386.SYS is used, the TYPE
switch will be set to XMS if the memory manager is not configured
for EMS emulation. TYPE may be set to EMS if EMM386 is configured
to convert all or part of the machine's extended memory to EMS.

Artisoft has also successfully tested LANCache in combination with
the DR DOS SuperStor disk compression utility on a LANtastic peer-
to-peer server. Artisoft and Digital Research strongly recommend
that you read DRI's Technical Tip #1200 before attempting this. In
addition, these steps should be closely followed when creating a
SuperStor partition:

NOTE: To avoid possible loss of data, LANtastic software must NOT
be running during this process!

1)   Back up any existing data on the hard drive, and run DISKOPT
     or another hard drive optimizer on the disk you will be
     SuperStor-ing. Also, see Chapter 13 (section 13.3) of the "DR
     DOS User Guide" for further cautionary information.

2)   If DR DOS is not already installed, boot the machine with the
     first installation disk in the A: diskette drive to perform
     the INSTALL process. In the DiskMAX options section, set the
     "SUPERSTOR device driver" setting to YES.

3)   If DR DOS is installed, run the SETUP program and specify the
     setting indicated in step 2 above.

4)   After completing DR DOS configuration, exit INSTALL or SETUP,
     selecting the option to reboot the computer.

5)   Once the system is back up and at the DOS prompt, ensure that
     no TSRs are running and then run the SSTOR configuration
     utility to actually create the SuperStor partition.

6)   Install LANtastic from the installation diskettes if it has
     not yet been installed.

It is highly recommended that the user study and understand the
functionality of SuperStor before attempting to create a compressed
partition. Failure to do so could result in lost or unrecoverable
data.

Compatibility Notes:

1.   If you want to use the Super PC Kwik disk caching program that
     is provided with DR DOS on a LANtastic server, you must
     disable the cache's delayed write caching feature. This is
     accomplished by adding the /H- and /D- switches to its command
     line in autoexec.bat. For example, after adding these
     switches, the line for invoking the cache in AUTOEXEC.BAT
     could look like this:


     SUPERPCK /A+ /R:0 /H- /D-

     Note that you may enable write caching on a LAN node that is
     not a LANtastic server (not running the SERVER.EXE program).

2.   To run Microsoft Windows 3.0 or 3.1 in 386 Enhanced mode over
     DR DOS 6.0 and LANtastic 4.0, it is necessary to have a
     LANTASTI.386 driver from Artisoft dated 8-16-91 or later. This
     driver was not included in the release version of LANtastic
     4.0, so users requiring this driver need to contact Artisoft
     Technical Support for an update. The correct driver is
     included with LANtastic NOS v4.10.

3.   Some utilities included with DR DOS 6.0 will not function and
     will return an error message if run on a redirected (network)
     drive or on a machine running the LANtastic SERVER program.
     These utilities are:
     Utility         On SERVER?       On network drive?

     CHKDSK                  N                N
     DELPURGE                N                N
     DELWATCH                N                N
     DISKMAP                 Y                N
     DISKOPT                 N                N
     FDISK                   N                N
     FORMAT                  Y*               N
     PASSWORD                Y**              N
     RECOVER                 N                N
     UNDELETE                Y                N
     UNFORMAT                N                N

*FORMAT may be used on a server's local floppy drives only if the
      "Floppy Direct" Server Startup Parameter is set to "enabled"
within     NET_MGR or on the SERVER command line.

**Files on a server protected by PASSWORD cannot be accessed from
LAN workstations, even when the correct password is provided. They
may, however, be accessed at the server on its own physical drive.

4.   The LANtastic NET_MGR Max Files Open parameter cannot be set
     to a value other than zero (0) when running on a DR DOS-based
     server. This option is only available on servers running MS-
     DOS. This means that servers with DR DOS installed will only
     support a maximum of 255 open files at a time.

5.   By design and to avoid potential problems, DR DOS detects
     executable files that have been "EXEPACKed" by the linker when
     the executable (.EXE file) was created. EXEPACKing is a
     process in which the executable code is compressed and then a
     very small uncompressing utility is added to the start of the
     EXE file. Thus, when a program is run, the utility first
     unpacks the code into memory, then jumps to the start of the
     uncompressed executable to start the actual program.
     Unfortunately, both the Microsoft linker's EXEPACK option and
     their EXEPACK utility have a bug which causes the unpacking
     routine to report the error "Packed file corrupt" and abort
     when the EXEPACKed program is loaded within the first 64K of
     base memory. Since DR DOS' memory management utilities make it
     very likely that programs will load within that critical
     region, the command interpreter checks each executable and
     will load it above 64K if it is EXEPACKed. If the program is
     a TSR, this means that its effective base memory overhead is
     increased by as much as 30K to 40K, making less base memory
     available for DOS applications. All Artisoft programs are
     EXEPACKed using an IBM linker that does not exhibit the bug,
     but DR DOS cannot determine which linker was used, only that
     a file is EXEPACKed. Two solutions exist: First, all NOS TSRs
     can be loaded into the UMA, if there are enough upper memory
     blocks available. Second, if there is not enough space in the
     UMA or the NOS TSRs must be loaded in base memory for another
     reason, a program such as PKLITE (a shareware program
     available on Artisoft's Arti-Facts BBS as PKL113.EXE) can be
     used to re-pack the executable so that it will not be
     identified as an EXEPACKed file. For more information, contact
     Artisoft Technical Support.

Note: The following items have been reported to Digital Research.
Inquires as to their status should be directed to DRI Technical
Support.

6.   A rare problem has been reported in which use of server paths
     (e.g. \\servername\devicename) from a Microsoft Quick Basic
     application was not handled correctly under DR DOS 6.0 and
     LANtastic 4.xx. The problem appears to be caused by DR DOS
     incorrectly parsing the '\\' at the start of the server path.
     This problem does not affect most normal LAN operations.
     Contact Digital Research for patch information.

7.   A server running DR DOS may not redirect a physical drive back
     to itself through the network. For example, a server named
     SERVER1 may not issue the following sequence of commands:

     NET LOGIN SERVER1 USER
     NET USE C: \\SERVER1\C-DRIVE

In this example the C-DRIVE device would be defined in NET_MGR to
have a link path of C:. If this NET USE is issued, all further
commands will result in an "Internal Error Code 001" error message.

8.   The LANPUP utility does not display redirections correctly.
     For example, LANPUP should normally display a redirection of
     drive E: as:

     E: => \\SERVER1\C-DRIVE

     When run with DR DOS, redirected drives are displayed as:

     E: => E:

The redirections are in fact intact, and LANPUP may still be used
to establish and remove network drive and printer connections.

9.   The LANtastic NET PRINT command will return "ERROR: The
     printer port must be redirected to a server." This can be
     remedied in two ways: First, the COPY command can be used to
     send a file to the printer - for example


     COPY TEST.BAT LPT1

Second, you can obtain a patch from Artisoft Technical Support
which will allow the NET PRINT function to work.

Version History:
6/5/92:   DR DOS 6.0 tested for compatibility with LANtastic NOS
          v4.1.
4/10/93:  Product tested for compatibility with LANtastic v5.0.

Vendor Information:
Digital Research Inc.
70 Garden Court/P. O. Box DRI
Monterey, CA 93942
408/646-6464
408/646-8209 (fax)

ARTISOFT, Inc. Makes no warranties as to the completeness or
accuracy of this document. LANtastic is a trademark of ARTISOFT,
Inc. Brand names, company names, and product names are trademarks
or registered trademarks of their respective companies.