Quarterdeck Expanded Memory Manager 7.0/Quarterdeck Expanded Memory Manager v7.0.img/TECHNOTE.QIP/MSDOS6.TEC

Text File | 1993-06-18 | 20KB | 393 lines

               MS-DOS 6 and Quarterdeck Products


  This QEMM 7 technote is an abridged version of a technical
  bulletin that is available through our standard support channels.
  The information contained in this version pertains ONLY to QEMM
  version 7.0.  If you need information relating to earlier versions
  of QEMM you can obtain the unabridged version from the following
  sources:

  Quarterdeck Technical Support BBS:  MSDOS6.TEC
                         CompuServe:  MSDOS6.ZIP
                              Q/FAX:  #166


  Subject: A discussion of MS-DOS version 6.0 and Quarterdeck
  products.


  1.  IS MS-DOS 6 COMPATIBLE WITH MY QUARTERDECK PRODUCTS?

  Absolutely!  The Microsoft DOS 6 README.TXT file states, in
  Section 6.10: "Quarterdeck's QEMM memory manager is compatible
  with MS-DOS 6." In addition, there are no known incompatibilities
  between MS DOS 6.0 and Quarterdeck's DESQview or DESQview/X
  multitaskers.

  2. AS A QEMM USER, WHAT INFORMATION DO I NEED TO INSTALL DOS 6?

  As a QEMM user, the most important information that you can take
  with you in the installation and configuration of Microsoft DOS 6
  is the knowledge that you are already running the most effective
  memory management system available for the IBM-compatible
  computer.  So, if you are already using QEMM:

  a. Run the SETUP program from the DOS 6 installation diskette and
  follow the instructions on the screen.

  b. Install any of the new DOS 6 utilities that you desire. DOS 6
  provides you the opportunity to add virus protection and other
  utilities to your system.  Remember: the default installation of
  DOS 6 installs only the MS Windows versions of these utilities;
  you have to tell it to install the DOS versions as well.  This is
  done on the Utilities screen of the SETUP process.

  c. Run QEMM's OPTIMIZE to load those drivers into Upper Memory.

  If you should desire to experiment with Microsoft DOS 6's
  MemMaker (the program that attempts to provide more memory), we
  can recommend a couple of safeguards.  MemMaker will remove ALL
  the QEMM commands from your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files
  (with the exception of DOSDATA.SYS and DOS-UP.SYS, which you
  would have to remove manually.)  We are confident that you will
  want to return to Quarterdeck's QEMM, so we urge you to save a
  copy of your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files.  Before you begin
  to experiment, copy these files from the root directory to some
  other directory or to floppy diskette. This will allow you to
  restore them easily.

  Next, be aware that even if you save the configuration created by
  MemMaker, you can usually reverse its changes by running MEMMAKER
  /UNDO.  If the final screen of the MemMaker process is NOT a
  numerical breakdown of how MemMaker got you more memory (and
  every test that we have run says it will not be), select the
  default exit by pressing the <ENTER> key.  Do NOT press F3 to
  save the current MemMaker configuration.

  It may also be helpful to know that MemMaker does NOT handle
  CALLed batch files.  A CALLed batch file is executed with the DOS
  keyword "CALL" which tells DOS to execute the commands in the
  "CALLed" batch file and then resume executing the remaining
  commands in the current batch file (the AUTOEXEC.BAT in this
  case).  The significance of this is that Quarterdeck's Optimize
  process DOES handle CALLed batch files, loading any TSR's in
  those batch files into Upper Memory instead of just ignoring
  them. This means that when MemMaker deletes the QEMM commands
  from the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS, it leaves them in the
  Optimized, CALLed batch files.  These would have to be removed by
  editing the CALLed batch files and deleting the LOADHI
  information.  If NO changes have been made since the last time
  that you Optimized your system, you could also run UNOPT.BAT.
  UNOPT is a batch file, created by Optimize, that returns your
  system to the condition it was in before the most recent
  Optimize.  If you have Optimized more than once, this may not
  remove the LOADHI information.

  It is obvious that with the greater selection of features in QEMM
  and Optimize MemMaker does not stand a chance of creating more
  Upper Memory. QEMM's Stealth ROM feature adds 96K of Upper
  Memory, 64K more than MemMaker's best attempt to find unused
  space in your System BIOS.  Optimize has the ability, through
  Quarterdeck's Squeeze technology, to "shoe-horn" TSR's and device
  drivers into areas that are large enough for them to reside, but
  too small for them to initialize.  (It is common for drivers and
  resident programs to require larger areas during initialization
  than they need once they have loaded.)  Optimize has a "What-If"
  feature that lets you see the effect that rearranging the loading
  order of your programs and drivers will have on your memory usage
  WITHOUT making any changes to your configuration.  None of this
  is possible with MemMaker.

  3.  ARE ANY OF MY QUARTERDECK PRODUCTS AFFECTED BY DOUBLESPACE?

  The most talked-about feature of Microsoft DOS 6 is DoubleSpace.
  DoubleSpace was designed to be compatible with QEMM's Stealth ROM
  feature.  Disk compression utilities, including Stacker,
  XtraDrive, and now DoubleSpace, have gone to great lengths to be
  compatible with Stealth ROM as well as Optimize.

  DBLSPACE.BIN is a driver that allows your system to recognize
  your DoubleSpace drive.  It is loaded by IO.SYS during boot time,
  BEFORE DOS has even thought about loading QEMM.  DBLSPACE.BIN
  uses about 43K of your memory, and when the CONFIG.SYS has
  completed, the memory used by the resident portion of
  DBLSPACE.BIN appears to be added to the memory used by the LAST
  driver loaded in the CONFIG.SYS.  In other words, the last driver
  loaded appears to be 43K larger than it actually is.  When you
  install DoubleSpace, the following line is added to your
  CONFIG.SYS file:

         DEVICE=C:\DOS\DBLSPACE.SYS /MOVE

  DBLSPACE.SYS has only one purpose, and that is to make
  DBLSPACE.BIN appear as a "real" driver, separate in memory.
  DoubleSpace REQUIRES that DBLSPACE.SYS be loaded in order for any
  memory manager to load DBLSPACE.BIN into upper memory.

  QEMM includes a feature called "Stealth DoubleSpace" which moves
  the DoubleSpace driver out of conventional or upper memory and
  maps it into the expanded memory Page Frame whenever it is
  needed.  By using Stealth DoubleSpace you save approximately 41K
  of memory.  If DoubleSpace is installed on your system when you
  install QEMM 7 the following line will be added to your
  CONFIG.SYS file:

          DEVICE=C:\QEMM\ST-DBL.SYS

  If you install DoubleSpace AFTER installing QEMM 7, you should
  run QEMM's QSETUP program (by typing QSETUP at the DOS prompt.)
  QSETUP will remove the DBLSPACE.SYS line in your CONFIG.SYS and
  replace it with the ST-DBL.SYS line shown above.

  The Stealth DoubleSpace feature, like the Stealth ROM feature,
  requires the EMS page frame to work.  If you have used
  QEMM386.SYS's FRAME=NONE; FRAMELENGTH=0, 1, 2 or 3; or EMS:N
  parameter to eliminate the page frame, the ST-DBL.SYS program
  will act exactly like the DOS 6 driver DBLSPACE.SYS with its
  /MOVE parameter: in other words, it will move DBLSPACE.BIN from
  the top of conventional memory to low conventional memory.  If
  you choose to leave ST-DBL.SYS in your CONFIG.SYS file without a
  page frame, you can use Optimize to load the DoubleSpace driver
  into High RAM, just as you could with DBLSPACE.SYS /MOVE.

  DESQview or DESQview/X users should be aware that the
  DBLSPACE.EXE program cannot be run from inside of DESQview or
  DESQview/X.  DBLSPACE.EXE detects the presence of DESQview and
  refuses to run.  This program is used mainly for the creation and
  maintenance of DoubleSpace drives.

  Quarterdeck has a program called NODESQ.COM that can be run in a
  DESQview window, before a program that detects DESQview.  NODESQ
  defeats the DESQview detection of DESQview-aware applications,
  like DBLSPACE.EXE.  You can add NODESQ.COM (available from the
  Quarterdeck BBS) and run DBLSPACE.EXE (as is the case for most of
  the DESQview-sensitive DOS 6 programs), but you may run some
  risk.  You should see that all DoubleSpace drives are mounted
  before entering any multitasking environment.  You should not
  mount drives using DBLSPACE.EXE inside of DESQview.  This may
  make working with DoubleSpaced floppies slightly awkward.

  4.  HOW CAN I RESTORE MY QEMM CONFIGURATION AFTER MEMMAKER HAS
      REMOVED QEMM FROM MY CONFIG.SYS AND AUTOEXEC.BAT FILES?

  The steps that you must follow in order to return to QEMM after
  running MemMaker depend on whether you have:

  1. Not yet completed MemMaker;
  2. Just finished running MemMaker for the first time;
  3. Run MemMaker more than once   OR
     made numerous post-MemMaker changes to your configuration.

  For the Number 1's who have not yet completed MemMaker:

  When MemMaker completes and DOES NOT provide a better
  configuration than the one you already had, it will tell you
  "Your computer's memory was optimally configured before you ran
  MemMaker".  At this juncture you can press <ENTER> to restore
  your original configuration or F3 to save the MemMaker
  configuration.  Your choice at this time will be <ENTER>.  Your
  existing QEMM configuration will be restored.

  For the Number 2's who just completed MemMaker:

  Since you have completed the MemMaker process, it has probably
  become evident to you that nothing provides more Upper Memory for
  loading your TSR's and device drivers than QEMM.  Hopefully, you
  followed our advice and made copies of your QEMM Optimized
  CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT.  You can now just copy them back.
  If you did not, and MemMaker has completed, you may be able to
  recover your configuration by using DOS 6's MEMMAKER /UNDO
  command.  This restores your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files to
  the state they were in before the last time you completed
  MemMaker.

  However, this is not possible if you have deleted the backup
  copies of the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files that MemMaker
  puts in the same directory as MEMMAKER.EXE.  These files are
  named AUTOEXEC.UMB and CONFIG.UMB (and sometimes SYSTEM.UMB; this
  is a copy of your MS Windows SYSTEM.INI file).  It is also not
  possible to restore the QEMM information and remove all the
  MemMaker information if you have run MemMaker MORE than ONCE.
  This would mean that the *.UMB files created by MemMaker would
  NOT have the QEMM information in them, but would still have ONLY
  MemMaker's options installed.

  If for some reason MEMMAKER /UNDO does not restore your QEMM
  configuration, do not be concerned.  Simply follow the simple
  instructions in the next section intended for Number 3's.

  For the Number 3's who made further changes after MemMaker:

  Whether you just finished running Memmaker (but are unable to
  restore your system with /UNDO) or have made extensive changes to
  your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files since running MemMaker,
  restoring your QEMM configuration is a simple matter.  Just type
  QSETUP from the DOS prompt.  QEMM's QSETUP program will remove
  HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE from your CONFIG.SYS file and replace
  them with a QEMM386.SYS device line.  From the QSETUP menu you
  can also enable other options (such as QDPMI and DOS-UP.)  Once
  QSETUP has enabled the options you choose, run QEMM's Optimize
  program to load your device drivers and TSR's into upper memory.
  That is all there is to it.

  WILL I HAVE ANY PROBLEMS WITH DESQVIEW OR DESQVIEW/X?

  Very few Microsoft DOS 6 issues confront the DESQview or
  DESQview/X user.  Any of the MS-DOS 6 utilities that might, in
  ANY way, cause a problem when run in a multitasking environment
  are DESQview-aware.  These particular programs will post a
  message reminding you that you are currently multitasking.  DOS 6
  uses portions of the DESQview API (Application Programming
  Interface) to detect if DESQview or DESQview/X is running.  You
  will have no problem running these programs outside of the
  multitasking environment.

  Available from Quarterdeck (via BBS, CompuServe, or other
  standard support channels), is a program called NODESQ.COM.  If
  NODESQ is run in the window, before running a DESQview-aware
  program, that program will not detect the presence of DESQview.
  You can add NODESQ.COM to a batch file that runs DBLSPACE.EXE.
  You should mount all possible drives before starting DESQview or
  DESQview/X.  You should not mount drives using DBLSPACE.EXE
  inside of DESQview.  This may make working with DoubleSpaced
  floppies slightly awkward.

  VSAFE is the resident virus protection program that watches for
  certain acts of virii and provides a warning when it finds one.
  VSAFE can be loaded in XMS (23K conventional, 23K XMS) or EMS
  (6.5K conventional, 64K EMS) before DESQview loads. If you do
  this, then you CANNOT ALWAYS pop it up over DESQview.  If you
  try, most of the time DESQview will appear to lose control over
  the keyboard. The DESQ key will NOT pull up the menu, etc.  This
  is because VSAFE is up; you just can't see it.  You have to hit
  ESC to make it go away.  Then all will function as normal.  If
  VSAFE is forced into Conventional memory (44K) it will pop up
  inside of DESQview.  VSAFE cannot be unloaded while inside of
  DESQview, if it was loaded before DESQview.

  THE DOS 6 INTERACTIVE BOOT PROCESS:

  DOS 6 now has an "interactive" boot process.  You can program the
  CONFIG.SYS to query you, every time the system boots, before
  loading a particular command in the CONFIG.SYS.  This is done by
  adding a "?" to the command before the "=" in the command.  The
  line: "DOS?=HIGH" would produce the following on the screen:
  "DOS=HIGH [Y,N]?" and you can make a choice as to load it or not.
  Optimize removes the "?" from any line that is edited by
  Optimize.  These include the lines in the CONFIG.SYS that begin
  with BUFFERS=, DEVICE=, or INSTALL=.

  Another feature in the interactive boot process is the ability to
  build menus of configurations in the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT.
  This is accomplished by building "blocks" in the CONFIG.SYS, and
  having the name of the block selection that you make on boot
  passed to the AUTOEXEC.BAT as an environment variable -%config%.
  The use of the environment variable, for IF's and GOTO's, will
  then process a particular portion of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file that
  is appropriate to that portion of the CONFIG.SYS.

  DOS 6 MULTIPLE CONFIGURATIONS AND QEMM:

  Multiple configurations (as implemented via the CONFIG.SYS
  blocks) have to be MemMakered one configuration at a time.  The
  DOS 6 documentation discusses the process of converting your
  CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT into multiple copies and then
  MemMakering them one at a time. Microsoft warns users to avoid
  [common] blocks and "first entries" in the AUTOEXEC.BAT.

  Unlike MemMaker, QEMM's Optimize program handles multiple
  configurations with ease.  When you run Optimize, it will detect
  any multiple configurations you have set up and will post a
  message prompting you to choose the CONFIG.SYS configuration you
  want to Optimize.  (If Optimize is launched automatically by the
  Install program or by QEMM Setup, these programs will also detect
  multiple configurations and pass the information along to the
  Optimize program.)  Optimize will then execute normally, booting
  the system with the configuration that you have chosen.

  When you are not using multiple configurations, Optimize places
  the /R:n (REGION:n) parameter on lines that load TSRs and device
  drivers to specify which High RAM region the driver or TSR will
  load into.  When you are using multiple configurations, instead of
  placing /R:n parameters on the QEMM386.SYS and LOADHI lines,
  Optimize will place /RF (/RESPONSEFILE) parameters.  The /R:n
  parameters would not work in a multiple configuration situation,
  because a program might be part of two or more CONFIG.SYS
  configurations, each requiring a different region number.

  The /RF parameter gets around this problem by directing
  QEMM386.SYS and the LOADHI programs to look in a resource file
  called LOADHI.RF that Optimize has created in the \QEMM
  directory. (Optimize places a LOADHIDATA environment variable in
  the CONFIG.SYS file that tells QEMM386.SYS and the LOADHI
  programs the name and location of this resource file.)  LOADHI.RF
  will contain several "config blocks," each corresponding to a
  CONFIG.SYS configuration and containing the appropriate /R:n
  statements for that configuration.  QEMM386.SYS and the LOADHI
  programs check the current CONFIG environment variable (created
  at boot time by DOS 6 to indicate which CONFIG.SYS configuration
  is being used), and then choose the appropriate config block to
  get information about what High RAM region they should use to
  load high.

  Here is an example of a resource file:

  [Vanilla]
  QEMM386.SYS /R:1
  C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE /R:1
  C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM /R:1

  [Development]
  QEMM386.SYS /R:1
  C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE /R:1
  C:\QEMM\QDPMI.SYS /R:1
  C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM /R:1

  [Full]
  QEMM386.SYS /R:2
  C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE /R:3
  C:\QEMM\QDPMI.SYS /R:3
  C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM /R:2
  C:\PCKWIK\SUPERPCK.EXE /R:2
  C:\NET\IPX.COM /R:1
  C:\NET\EMSNETX.COM /R:2

  [All Others]
  QEMM386.SYS /R:1
  C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE /R:1
  C:\QEMM\QDPMI.SYS /R:1
  C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM /R:1
  C:\PCKWIK\SUPERPCK.EXE /R:2

  In this example, the blocks named Vanilla, Development, and Full
  will be used only when you choose their names off the menu that
  DOS 6 offers when you boot with multiple configurations.  The All
  Others section will be used only if none of the blocks before it
  were chosen.  If you place a line before the first block, it will
  be used no matter what configuration name you choose.

  This file format is also supported by QEMM's parameter files (see
  Chapter 7 of the QEMM manual for information) and by the DOS-Up
  resource file DOS-UP.DAT, which the driver DOS-UP.SYS uses to
  determine where different parts of DOS go in High RAM.  Normally,
  you do not need to edit these files yourself.   Optimize creates
  and maintain the files.


  6. WHAT ELSE IS QUARTERDECK DOING FOR MS-DOS 6?

  Quarterdeck's commitment to adding functionality to DOS, and DOS-
  based programs, has kept our products at the forefront of memory
  management and multitasking technology.  With each new version of
  DOS comes an opportunity for Quarterdeck to design new features
  and offer the DOS user an even greater implementation of the
  world's most widely used operating system.  Rest assured that
  Quarterdeck intends to continue this pattern.

  *************************************************************** *
  This technical note may be copied and distributed freely as long
  as it is distributed in its entirety and it is not distributed
  for profit.  Copyright (C) 1993 by Quarterdeck Office Systems
  ****************** E N D   O F   F I L E ***********************