V 1.1 : Making use of USER_INI and SYSTEM_INI entries
V 1.2 : User can now include additional files from x:\OS2 into UpdIni processing. Paths may now be used on RAM disk, too.
What is UpdIni?
===============
UpdIni moves the files OS2.INI and OS2SYS.INI into a ramdisk and copies these files back to harddisk in regular intervals.
The idea behind this is to accelerate the WPS. The WPS updates these INI files in irregular intervals with high priority, suspending all other activities for the moment. With the INI files located on a ramdisk, access time is significantly reduced, the user may even not notice any activity at all.
With RAM disk data being transient, the INI files have to be backed up on harddisk periodically. For this purpose UpdIni checks the INI files' archive bits on RAM disk at recurrent intervals as set by the user, and, in case of a discrepancy, copies the INI files from ramdisk back to harddisk with idle-task priority.
Some programs, e.g. GhostView, look for their respective INI and CFG files in precisely the same directory as is defined for the OS2 inis in the CONFIG.SYS SET entries. Therefore, starting with version 1.2, an ASCII file named UpdIni.Cfg is used, into which the user can enter the names of additional files to be included in the UpdIni process. Furthermore, from V 1.2 on, RAM disk paths are supported.
WARNING : The changes which the WPS writes into the INI files while shutting down the system will not be copied anymore!
This may be relevant when there are important entries having being changed immediately before system shutdown.
A possible scenario might be the automatic reboot in the course of a program installation. With an installation pending, I would definitely reset the SET INI parameters to point to the correct harddisk entries!
The commandline parameters
==========================
UpdIni expects two parameters :
First, the path for the INI files on your harddisk (normally D:\OS2), and, second, the update interval in seconds.
e.g. : UpdIni D:\OS2\ 10
In this example, every ten seconds the INI files will be checked and possibly written back from ramdisk to the directory D:\OS2. The drive letter for the ramdisk and the names of the INI files are extracted from the USER_INI and SYSTEM_INI environment variables.
Installing UpdIni
=================
Simply copy UpdIni.EXE to any directory of your harddisk. Now insert the following line into CONFIG.SYS
run=dr:\path\updini.exe INI-Path interval
with dr being the drive and path being the path you installed UpdIni.exe in.
Additionally, you have to change the entries for the INI files in your CONFIG.SYS:
SET USER_INI=N:\INIS\OS2.INI
SET SYSTEM_INI=N:\INIS\OS2SYS.INI
with drive N:\ being your ramdisk and INIS being the path to your INI files on RAM disk.
If you want more files to be included in UpdIni processing, like, e.g., GVPM.INI for Ghostview, proceed as follows:
Create an ASCII file "UpdIni.Cfg" in the directory where UpdIni.exe lives. Into "UpdIni.Cfg" put the names of the additional files to be processed by UpdIni. Enter one file name per line, only use file names, do _not_ use path names. UpdIni processing is not restricted to INI files: file names with arbitrary extensions, such as ????.CFG, may be entered.
Please note that when starting UpdIni there must already be a RAM disk up and running, because UpdIni start withs copying INI files to RAM disk. Thus, the statement(s) which initialize(s) the RAM disk must be prior to the line starting UpdIni.
Any RAM disk program may be used with UpdIni. Here is an example for using Karl Olsen's RamFS (found in freeware, as is UpdIni):
IFS=F:\UTILITY\RAMFS\RAMFS.IFS
...
SET USER_INI=N:\INIS\OS2.INI
SET SYSTEM_INI=N:\INIS\OS2SYS.INI
...
RUN=F:\UTILITY\RAMFS\RAMDISK.EXE N: RAMDISK
RUN=D:\OS2\UPDINI.EXE D:\OS2\ 10
Unfortunately, RamFS is rather slow at writing. On my machine, housing a 486 running at 160 MHZ, the WPS accesses are clearly perceptible. In case your machine behaves similarly, you may want to try Vdisk (comes with OS/2) or Albert J. Shan's shareware program SVDisk.
With UpdIni working completely in the background, there is no message whatsoever on screen.
In case UpdIni cannot find one of the INI files, only a short beep will inform you about this error. In this case, no INI files will be copied, so that the WPS cannot find its INIs. System start will terminate, ending up in a blank screen ( my monitor tells me "invalid scanning frequency"). Reboot your machine immediately and start a command line session only (press ALT-F1 while the OS/2 logo is shown in the upper left corner, from the menu showing up next select "F2: start commandline only"). Check your CONFIG.SYS entries and reboot your machine.
In its installation path UpdIni generates a logfile in which you can examine all its activities of the current working session.
Internals
=========
UpdIni was written in TopSpeed Modula-2 and is a 16-bit OS/2 program. It is a multithreading program, thus causing almost no system load.
The program is based on an idea by Carsten Arnold.
Registration
============
UpdIni is freeware and may be used by anyone in any way, as long as the program and the documentation remain unchanged.
If you use the program regularly I would appreciate a little email:
email : p.engels@gmx.de
URL : http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs0ad
If you have ideas for changes and/or improvement or even find a bug, please feel free to email me as well.
Legal Disclaimer:
=================
Permission is granted to any individual or institution to use, copy, or redistribute this executable as long as it is not modified and is not sold for profit.
UpdIni is provided AS IS and comes with no warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied. In no event will the copyright holder be liable for any damages resulting from the use of this software.
