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Chapter 4. Installing X-DOS The X-DOS Diskette(s) X-DOS comes on two 360K diskettes or one diskette of superior density. In the two disk 360K version, Diskette 1 is a bootable diskette and contains the system files and most of the external DOS commands in a sub directory called DOS. Diskette 2 contains some extra commands and features, including the X-DOS shell which provides an easy to use menu driven command interface. If you are familiar with DOS and look through the list of the files in the DOS directory on the first diskette and on the second diskette you will notice some commands that are not found in other versions of DOS. Amongst the new files present, are : - ED.EXE : the X-DOS editor - XBACK.COM : the X-DOS backup utility - SHELLF.EXE/SHELLA.EXE : the X-DOS SHELL overlay files - VIRUSCHK.COM : a virus checker - SETUP.COM : a hardware setup - INSTALL.EXE : the X-DOS install utility - MAX.COM : the command processor overlay - X-COM.EXE : X-DOS Communications program If you are familiar with all the MS-DOS commands you will also notice that some files that appear in MS-DOS are not found on the X-DOS diskettes. This is because some of the commands in X-DOS are present in the MAX.COM file which contains small commands such as the ATTRIB, LABEL, COMP, FIND ... commands. How To Install X-DOS On A Disk(ette) Before you take the major step of installing X-DOS on your hard disk (please note that you do NOT have to reformat your hard disk to do so) you may wish at first to install X-DOS on to a floppy diskette and try it. You must use the INSTALL utility file included with X-DOS to make a disk(ette) bootable with X-DOS. A DOS is not an ordinary program. It cannot be activated like a spreadsheet or a database utility. The media on which X-DOS is installed, a floppy or a hard disk, must be made aware of the X-DOS system files. That information is contained in the boot sector of the media. The INSTALL program transfer the X-DOS files to the target media and will build the boot record of the destination drive to make it recognize X-DOS. 4-1 To activate the INSTALL utility insert the first X-DOS diskette in your PC's A: floppy disk drive and turn on your system. Your system will be booted with X-DOS and you will see the X-DOS prompt on the screen. Type INSTALL and press [ENTER]. The main screen will ask you for the target drive onto which you wish to install X-DOS. X-DOS can only be installed on to a media that can be bootable. It will be therefore the 'A' drive or the 'C' drive, since you can only boot a PC from these drives. The 'B' drive is made available in case you want install X-DOS onto a different media such as a 3.5" diskette. Usually you cannot boot from the B: drive though some BIOS's allow you to do this. Choose the target drive and press [ENTER]. The INSTALL utility will then ask you if you want to copy the files or just modify the X-DOS configuration file. The INSTALL program can also be used to change the CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT parameters without having to edit them. For now choose the 'Copy files' option. The INSTALL program will copy the X-DOS files onto the target media in the DOS directory, displaying the files that are copied. If you are installing X-DOS on a 360K diskette, the INSTALL program will warn you that the diskette is full and that you need to insert a new diskette. Remove the first diskette and insert the second 360K diskette and the process will be continued. If you decide to install X-DOS on your hard disk, and the target drive already has a DOS directory containing the MS-DOS files, INSTALL will save the contents of the previous DOS directory. The MS-DOS files will be copied to a directory named OLDDOS and the X-DOS commands will be copied to the DOS directory. One of the important features of X-DOS is that you can retain the original DOS on your disk and switch back to this DOS whenever you wish to by booting with the original DOS diskette and using the original DOS's SYS command. It is not necessary to reformat your hard disk drive or delete the old DOS in order to install X-DOS. When all the files are copied, INSTALL will ask you to remove the second diskette and insert the first one again, if you changed diskette. At this stage, follow the instructions, and insert the first diskette. This step is necessary for INSTALL to write the CONFIG.SYS and the AUTOEXEC.BAT files onto the bootable diskette. The CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files are important DOS files which allow you to automatically configure your system at boot up. Once all the X-DOS files have been copied, INSTALL presents you a screen with a menu. The first selection enables you to set the CONFIG.SYS parameters, the second entry enables you to set the AUTOEXEC.BAT parameters automatically. Even if you are not familiar with PCs and DOS, using the X-DOS install facility it 4-2 will be easy to edit the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, unlike in other DOSs which require the use of cryptic commands to be entered at the command line. If the target media already has CONFIG.SYS and/or AUTOEXEC.BAT files, INSTALL will rename them as CONFIG.OLD and AUTOEXEC.OLD, so that your previous configuration is preserved. However, the INSTALL program will take into account the content of the existing CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files. For instance if you had a device driver statement in your original CONFIG.SYS file for a tape backup unit, the new CONFIG.SYS file created by X-DOS will still contain the statement to run this device. The same applies to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. You may need to modify some parameters of your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files because X-DOS will not run properly with them or does not need them because of enhanced internal support in X- DOS. For example, if your CONFIG.SYS file contains a driver for a DISK MANAGER or a SPEEDSTOR partition for your hard disk drive, you can remove it since X-DOS already recognizes those partitions internally without the need for an external device driver. Indeed, if you leave the statement this may cause conflict. If your AUTOEXEC.BAT contains reference to the FASTOPEN command found in Microsoft's MS-DOS, remove them since this command is not supported by X-DOS. You are now ready to tailor your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files to take full advantage of the features of X-DOS. The INSTALL utility will help you to do that. Choose the Boot Up parameters, and a second menu will appear on the right side of the screen with the current default parameters. If you do not know the meaning of a parameter, press the F1 key to get on line help or refer to the section concerning the parameter in the manual. Each entry is outlined below. A more complete reference to each item is given in the next chapter. ANSI If you want to install the ANSI.SYS console driver then you should select this menu item. Highlight the menu item and press [Enter] or use the quick key. Install ANSI.SYS by pressing [Enter] in the next menu. The ANSI.SYS driver does not need to be installed unless you have some applications which use it. BREAK When you select this menu item you will be prompted with a menu with two items, ON and OFF. The ON item is currently selected so press [Enter] to set BREAK to ON. BUFFERS Highlight this menu item and press [Enter] to change the default 4-3 number of buffers. You will be prompted with an entry box which already contains the default value. Type in a new value and press [Enter] to change the default setting. X-DOS defaults the BUFFERS statement to 20 buffers for all computers. CACHE Please, note that the CACHE function of X-DOS is not available in the evaluation version. The documentation is provided here for your information only. If you wish to install the CACHE utility which can greatly enhance the access time when retrieving data, press the [ENTER] key and INSTALL will assist you in setting all the necessary parameters. First select the physical disk(s) where the cache should be installed, then choose the type of memory where the cached data will be stored and finally select the size of the cache. Note that INSTALL does not perform any test to see if the parameters are correct. Any possible errors will be reported when the cache is activated at boot time. COUNTRY This command is used to set the TIME and DATE format for your specific country. If you select this menu item you should enter the country where you reside. INSTALL will then translate the country name into the country's international telephone code which is used by the COUNTRY parameter. ENVIRONMENT (SHELL) Highlight this menu item and press [Enter] to change the default size of the environment. INSTALL will prompt you with an entry box which already has a default value in it. Type in a new value and press [Enter] to change the default value. The size is shown in bytes with a default value of 384 bytes. Maximum value is 65,536 bytes. Note that X-DOS requires more space in the environment than MS-DOS because the default setup and default aliases are stored in the environment. The environment size is adjusted with the SHELL command. FILES Highlight this menu and press [Enter] to change the number of file handles that X-DOS can have open at one time. X-DOS prompts you with an entry box which already has a default value in it. Type in any new value and press [Enter] to change the default setting. The default value for FILES is 20 open file handles. FUNCTION KEYS Highlight this menu and press [ENTER] to change the FKEY filter. INSTALL lets you set or reset the X-DOS filter that translate the Function keys (F1, F2 ...). The default is OFF. Set the filter to ON if you want function key translation. Note that enabling function key translation might disrupt the function key allocations used by your applications software. 4-4 HISTORY The History buffer is used to store the command line typed at the prompt. The INSTALL defaults to 256 bytes but you can change that size up to 64K. LASTDRIVE Highlight this menu item and press [Enter] to change the default setting for the LASTDRIVE variable. INSTALL will prompt you with an entry box which already contains the default value E. Type another drive letter to change the default value. The largest value you can specify for LASTDRIVE is Z. In case you are using the SUBST or JOIN commands, make sure that you leave enough drives available after your last partition drive. VIDEO If you want X-DOS to speed the output to the screen, choose the option VIDEO is ON in the sub menu. If you have a CGA or EGA screen, the video output will appear much faster with video ON. Note, however, that only the speed of text mode will be enhanced and graphics mode will not be affected. VIRTUAL DISK If you want to install a virtual (RAM) disk in memory then you should select this menu item. If you want to install a virtual disk you will be prompted with a menu from which you will have to choose if you want to install the virtual disk in conventional (base) memory, in extended memory, or in expanded memory. If your computer does not have either extended memory or expanded memory, you will not be able to set up a virtual disk in this kind of memory. If you plan to install a virtual disk in conventional memory, you should remember that your programs will not be able to use any conventional memory that you allocate for a virtual disk. Once you have decided where you want to install your virtual disk and how much memory you want to use for it, you should make your choice. If you select a virtual disk, then you must type the number of K (kilobytes) that you want to use for a virtual disk. The maximum amount of extended or expanded memory you can allocate for a virtual disk is 16,384K (16 megabytes). When your Boot Up parameters are defined, go back to the main menu and choose the General configuration to modify some switches of the AUTOEXEC.BAT. A new menu appear and each entry is detailed below. COPY COMMAND (XCOPY) The XCOPY command in X-DOS has many command line switches to control the copying process. This menu selection lets you specify any switches you want it to use as a default. If you select certain switches then whenever you run the XCOPY command, the specified switches will be used without having to type it in each time. When you select XCOPY and press [Enter], you will have ten 4-5 switches to choose from. Highlight any of the switches you want as a default by moving the highlight bar with the [Up] and [Down] arrow keys and pressing the [Enter] key on the selections you would like. Alternatively press the quick keys of the menu items that you want to install. If by mistake you select a wrong switch, you can de-activate it again by highlighting it and pressing the [Enter] key or by pressing the quick key for that item again. You can normally select more than one switch as a default setting but you should check if the switches that you select can work in combination with each other. When you have made your default selections press [Esc] to exit back to the General Configuration menu. DIRECTORY COMMAND (DIR) You can highlight this menu item to select the command line switches that DIR will use by default whenever you use the DIR command. Pressing [Enter] with DIR highlighted in the General Configuration menu will pop up a menu with the available DIR switches. Use the [Up] and [Down] arrow keys to scroll between the different switch options and press the [Enter] key over any of the switches that you want to set as a default. You can also use the quick keys. If by mistake you select a switch you can de- activate it again by highlighting it and pressing the [Enter] key. You can normally select more than one switch as default setting but you should check if the switches that you select can work in combination with each other. When you have made your default selection press [Esc] to exit back to the General Configuration menu. EDITOR COMMAND (ED) X-DOS includes a full screen editor with word processing capabilities. You can set certain default settings which will be activated every time you run ED. You will still be able to alter these settings from within ED as required. Highlight this menu item if you want to set different values of the four available options. The X-DOS editor, ED, lets you specify default settings for Wrap Mode, Automatic Indent, Left Margin, Right Margin and Tab. The first item, Wrap Mode, prompts you with a menu from which you can Enable or Disable wordwrap. Selecting any of the four other items will make INSTALL prompt you with an entry box in which you should type in a value indicating a column number. PATH Highlight this menu item if you want to specify a PATH with directories you want X-DOS to look through when you execute programs or command scripts. Remember to include the complete path with both drive and leading directory specifications. The default is the boot \DOS directory which contains all the X-DOS utilities. You should not remove it from your path. VIDEO MODE (MODE) If your computer is equipped with an EGA or VGA graphics adapter 4-6 and equivalent monitor you can use X-DOS in 43 line text mode which gives you almost double the information on the screen at the command line. If you want to install this feature select this item and you will be prompted with a new menu. Select the 43 Line Mode item. If you are not sure if your computer is capable of displaying text in 43 line mode you can try to install this feature. If your screen does not change into 43 line text mode then your graphics adapter does not support it. You should then run INSTALL again and un-install this option. VIRUS CHECK X-DOS is equipped with a virus checker which can check any files up to a total of 256 files for a possible virus. It is recommended that you install this option if you are using public domain or shareware programs. The X-DOS virus checker does not remove viruses from any files. It simply warns you if a file has been modified. Parameters can be set from the INSTALL program. The first option is to set which mode XSHELL will be in when activated : File section or Application section. The second option is to choose to activate the X-DOS XSHELL automatically or not. If you choose to start XSHELL automatically, the Command Processor will activate the SHELL at boot time. For details of what the shell is and what you can do with it, please refer to the relevant section in this manual. Now that your Boot Up parameters and the general configuration parameters are ready, select the 'Save Changes and Exit' to store the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files on the target disk(ette). The target disk(ette) now contains the necessary system files to boot X-DOS as well as all the utilities in the \DOS directory. In the root directory, the CONFIG.SYS and the AUTOEXEC.BAT files contain the parameters and choices you made using INSTALL. A file called X-DOS.CFG will appear on the target disk(ette). This file contains an duplication of your choices in case you wish to change something again in the boot up parameters, which you can do by running INSTALL again. Do not delete the X-DOS.CFG file. It is now time to boot your computer and if you installed X-DOS onto a diskette make sure the first diskette is in the drive (with the door closed!) and then turn on your PC. Within a few seconds, the X-DOS copyright message should appear on your screen followed by the default X-DOS prompt. 4-7