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JP Software
4DOS Application Notes
Version 5.5 -- October 12, 1994
Copyright 1988 - 1994, JP Software Inc., All Rights Reserved. Published
by JP Software Inc., P.O. Box 1470, E. Arlington, MA 02174 USA, (617)
646-3975.
This file provides information on using 4DOS with a variety of other
software products. It is intended for use whenever you have a question
about using another product with 4DOS, or suspect a compatibility
problem.
Virtually all of your software will work with 4DOS with no trouble.
Inclusion of a product in this file does NOT mean there are
compatibility problems with it! It only indicates that we have some
information that may be useful to you when you use the product with
4DOS.
Items which were significantly updated for the release of 4DOS version
5.5 are marked with "5.5" in the left margin.
This file is formatted at 58 lines per page, and contains form feeds and
page footers. It is somewhat long, so you may prefer to view it with a
file viewer such as the 4DOS LIST command. You can print this file on
most PC printers using the command:
copy appnotes.doc prn
Printing it with a program that formats the pages is not likely to work
due to the formatting included in the file.
(9/94-5.5A)
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 1
Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
General Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Running 4DOS along with COMMAND.COM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Executing DOS Commands from Your Applications . . . . . . . . . 7
Swapping to RAM Disks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4DOS and Other Command Line Editing Programs . . . . . . . . . . 8
4DOS and EXE File Compression Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Mouse Compatibility with 4DOS HELP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Information on Specific Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
MS-DOS APPEND Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
MS-DOS 6.x DBLSPACE and DRVSPACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
MS-DOS 6.x HELP Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
MS-DOS FASTOPEN Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
MS-DOS 4.0 and above FORMAT /S and SYS Command . . . . . . . . . 12
MS-DOS 6.x MEMMAKER Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
MS-DOS 6.x MOVE Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
MS-DOS 4.0 and above SELECT Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
MS-DOS / PC-DOS 6.x SMARTDRV Disk Cache . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1DIR+ (Bourbaki) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
ANSI.SYS (various manufacturers) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Bookshelf CD-ROM (Microsoft) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
DESQview (Quarterdeck) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
DOORWAY BBS Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
DR DOS / Novell DOS (Novell) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Epsilon (Lugaru Software) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
FASTIO (Cyrix) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
FoxPro (Microsoft) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Hijaak (Inset Systems) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
LapLink (Traveling Software) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
NDIS Network Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Netware (Novell) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Netware Diskless Workstations (Novell) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
OS/2 1.x, 2.x, and 3.x (IBM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
QEMM and QRAM (Quarterdeck) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
RBase (MicroRim) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
RoboComm Communications Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Software Carousel (SoftLogic Solutions) . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Stacker (Stac Electronics) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
SuperStor (AddStor, Novell) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
TSRCOM Utilities (TurboPower Software) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
UltraVision (Personics) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Windows 3.x (Microsoft) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
XyWrite (XyQuest) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Programs Requiring PATH to be Under 128 Characters . . . . . . . 30
Checkit (Touchstone); Computer Select CD-ROM (Ziff-Davis);
RenderMan (AutoDesk); VINES Network (Banyan); Windows 3.0
(Microsoft); Word for Windows 6.0 (Microsoft)
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 2
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 3
Introduction
------------
We have made every effort to ensure that this file is as accurate and up
to date as possible. Our information is based on our own
investigations, reports from 4DOS beta testers, technical support calls,
discussions with manufacturers of other products, and reports from our
customers. Unfortunately, varying conditions between systems or between
software releases can easily invalidate the results of previous tests.
Therefore we cannot guarantee that every item in this file is accurate
for all systems or will remain accurate over time; you may have to do
your own testing to determine what works well on your system with the
software you own.
If you have a question or problem related to another program, first read
through Chapter 3 and Appendix A of the 4DOS Introduction and
Installation Guide ("4DOS And Your Hardware And Software"). Those
sections of the manual give general suggestions for using 4DOS with
other products and for solving compatibility problems, and should always
be used along with this file.
If the techniques in the manual don't help, check below for both
additional general suggestions which pertain to your question, and
information on the specific product you are working with. Please note
that some products are listed by category rather than or in addition to
specific listings by product name; check the Table of Contents carefully
to see where any particular product may be covered.
Many of the items below refer to the 4DOS.INI file. See Chapter 5 of
the Reference Manual, or the online help, for a complete explanation of
4DOS.INI and the directives which can be used there.
Many popular software products are not covered in this file. If a
program does not appear here, it simply means that as far as we know no
additional information is necessary or useful when using that program
with 4DOS.
If you have a question or problem related to how 4DOS works with other
hardware or software products, and it isn't addressed in the manuals or
these notes, contact JP Software or your dealer for technical support.
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 4
General Information
-------------------
Running 4DOS along with COMMAND.COM:
You may find a very rare program which will not work under 4DOS,
but runs properly under COMMAND.COM. If you have determined that
the problem cannot be solved through configuration changes or by
eliminating or reconfiguring a third program which is causing the
problem, use this section to see how to run 4DOS and COMMAND.COM
together in order to diagnose such a problem.
There are two methods of loading COMMAND.COM before another
program. The first is to load it only when a specific program is
running. This can be accomplished with the following command
(assuming COMMAND.COM is in the root directory of drive C:):
c:\command /c progname options
where "progname" is the program name (with path if necessary) and
"options" are any parameters for the program. This command will
run COMMAND.COM, load and run the program, and upon exit from the
program will exit from COMMAND.COM and return to 4DOS. If this
is necessary to run a specific program, it can be defined as an
alias:
alias progname `c:\command /c progname %&`
The "%&" passes all command line arguments on to the program.
With this method, if the program is large COMMAND.COM may need to
reload itself when the program exits. It will not be able to do
so unless the COMSPEC is set properly. If you experience
problems such as "Invalid COMMAND.COM" errors when using this
method, use a batch file like the following to run the program in
question (the SETLOCAL and ENDLOCAL cause COMSPEC to be restored
to its previous value after the program exits). You will need to
modify this file if your copy of COMMAND.COM is not stored in the
C:\ directory:
setlocal
set comspec=C:\COMMAND.COM
c:\command /c progname %&
endlocal
The second method is more drastic: you can start your system
under COMMAND.COM, then run 4DOS. This approach is rarely
necessary, and will use about 4 - 5K of additional RAM for the
resident portion of COMMAND.COM.
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 5
The following steps will set your system up to boot with
COMMAND.COM, and run 4DOS automatically as part of the boot
process:
(1) Set up the SHELL= statement in CONFIG.SYS to run
COMMAND.COM, or leave it out entirely. In other words, set
it up just as you would if 4DOS were not on your system.
(2) Separate your AUTOEXEC file into two parts: part 1,
which remains in AUTOEXEC.BAT, should contain any commands
you wish to have COMMAND.COM execute before 4DOS is started.
This might include loading any TSRs which you cannot get to
load properly under 4DOS. Part 2, which you must place in a
separate batch file (we suggest the name 4DAUTO.BAT, but you
can use any name you wish), should contain the commands you
wish to have 4DOS execute when it is started.
(3) Place the following line as the last line in the modified
AUTOEXEC.BAT:
4DOS parameters filename
where "parameters" represents any necessary 4DOS parameters
for your INI file name, et.c (see the manuals or the Startup
topic in the online help for additional details), and
"filename" is the name of the new batch file you created for
part 2 of your old AUTOEXEC file. Do NOT include a /P in the
"parameters" or 4DOS will re-run AUTOEXEC and therefore load
itself again, ad infinitum!
(4) Be sure that KSTACK.COM is loaded in your AUTOEXEC.BAT
file or your 4DOS startup file if you wish to use the 4DOS
KEYSTACK command.
This will load COMMAND.COM, execute the commands in AUTOEXEC,
load 4DOS, execute the commands in your new batch file, and then
give you the normal 4DOS prompt.
There is one drawback to this second approach: because 4DOS is
not loaded with a /P, the EXIT command will return you to
COMMAND.COM if you inadvertently enter it at the primary shell
prompt. You can get around this by including the /P parameter
despite the caution above, and then placing the following line at
the start of AUTOEXEC.BAT:
if "%@eval[2+2]"=="4" quit
This line tests the 4DOS variable function %@EVAL, which will
return "4" under 4DOS and remain unchanged under COMMAND.COM. If
%@EVAL returns a "4" the statement QUITs the batch file,
preventing the infinite loop described above.
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 6
Executing DOS Commands from Your Applications:
In general you should have no trouble running DOS commands or
"shelling to DOS" from within your applications. If you do,
first check your COMSPEC setting (see the Reference Manual or
online help for details), and check that enough memory is
available for 4DOS to execute as a secondary shell.
If those techniques do not resolve the problem, it may be due to
one of the issues covered below: either the application was
developed with a compiler that does not handle the format of
4DOS.COM properly, or it is using interrupt 2E and you have
disabled interrupt 2E support.
Compilers and the Format of 4DOS.COM:
If you have an application which can run DOS commands from
inside the application and that particular feature does not
work, try to determine if the application was developed with
Borland C or Lattice C. Some older versions of these
compilers cannot properly execute 4DOS.COM to start a
secondary shell, because 4DOS.COM (despite its name) is
formatted as an EXE file, and the libraries shipped with
these compilers do not use the proper method to determine
what type of file they are running.
If you suspect such a problem, make a copy of 4DOS.COM named
4DOS.EXE, and SET your COMSPEC variable to this file, for
example:
d:\4dos> copy 4dos.com 4dos.exe
d:\4dos> set comspec=d:\4dos\4dos.exe
Then run the application in question and see if it works. If
so, you can use the above workaround to run the application.
Be sure to contact the application vendor to see if they have
an update which corrects this problem.
Re-Enabling Interrupt 2E Support:
COMMAND.COM contains an undocumented feature which allows
programs to execute DOS commands by passing the command
through software interrupt number 2E (hex). Not many
programs use this feature, but full, documented support for
it is available within 4DOS for those circumstances where
it's needed.
Interrupt 2E support is normally enabled within 4DOS, but can
be disabled to save memory (INT 2E support requires about 100
bytes of resident memory).
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 7
If you have a program which is supposed to execute DOS
commands and it does not work under 4DOS, check your 4DOS.INI
file. If you see a line like this:
FullINT2E = No
then you have disabled INT 2E support. If the line is there,
try removing this line or replacing it with one reading:
FullINT2E = Yes
to re-enable support for interrupt 2E, then check whether
your program works properly.
See Appendix C of the 4DOS Introduction and Installation
Guide for technical details on the INT 2E interface.
Swapping to RAM Disks:
In order to swap the primary shell to a RAM disk the RAM disk
must be completely defined in CONFIG.SYS via a DEVICE= statement
(most RAM disks are set up this way). RAM disks completely or
partially defined in AUTOEXEC.BAT (such as the RAM disk / cache
combination in Multisoft's PC Kwik Power Pak) cannot be used for
swapping the primary shell, because AUTOEXEC.BAT has not been
executed at the time that the root shell is loaded, and hence the
RAM disk does not exist at that point.
4DOS and Other Command Line Editing Programs:
Programs such as Anarkey (Moderne Software), PCED (Cove
Software), and ReDOS (Multisoft) will work properly with 4DOS.
However these programs require the use of SETDOS /L1 to operate,
which will disable 4DOS's command recall and command line
editing. In most cases you will be able to switch back and forth
between 4DOS editing and the other editor by toggling the SETDOS
/L state.
When another editor is used 4DOS's command history will be
maintained, and can be viewed with HISTORY, but will not be
available for recall until a SETDOS /L0 is executed. 4DOS
aliases, executable extensions, and other features will be active
regardless of the SETDOS /L state. Aliases will be processed
after any processing done by the other editing program. You must
use care with other programs that provide an aliasing capability
to avoid confusion if a command is expanded by both the other
program and 4DOS!
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 8
4DOS and EXE File Compression Programs:
If you use a file compression program like PKLITE, LZEXE, or
DIET, you must use caution when compressing 4DOS files. Most
such programs should be able to compress the 4DOS.COM file with
no trouble. However if you have a copy of 4DOS that you intend
to brand with your name and serial number, you must brand it
BEFORE you run the file compression program, or the BRAND program
will fail. Similarly, HELPCFG will not be able to modify your
HELP system colors if you compress the 4HELP.EXE program.
Mouse Compatibility with 4DOS HELP:
The 4DOS HELP system depends on correct operation of your mouse
driver. If your mouse doesn't work in HELP, or you have trouble
with mouse "droppings" (characters left behind by the mouse
cursor), be sure you have the most up to date working version of
your mouse driver that is available.
Users of Microsoft serial and PS/2 mice may notice a long delay
when the HELP system starts. This is due to the long
initialization time required for these mice, and is a function of
the mouse driver, not the HELP system. If you don't use the
mouse in HELP and want to speed up HELP startup, set
HelpOptions = /X in 4DOS.INI. This will disable all mouse access
in the HELP system.
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 9
Information on Specific Products
--------------------------------
The information below is listed alphabetically by product, with
manufacturers' names included. MS-DOS commands are listed before other
software products.
Items marked with two asterisks [**] after the product name were
supplied by users, and have not been tested by JP Software.
MS-DOS APPEND Command:
Unlike most other commands in MS-DOS, APPEND has both an external
portion and an undocumented internal portion. The first time
APPEND is run the external portion is executed, and loaded into
memory as a TSR (memory-resident program). Subsequent uses of
APPEND to adjust the APPEND path use an undocumented internal
interface between COMMAND.COM and the TSR portion of APPEND.
4DOS does not support the internal portion of APPEND command.
This means that you cannot change the APPEND path directly from
4DOS. However you can still use APPEND with 4DOS.
APPEND should initially be loaded in the usual way, from AUTOEXEC
or any other batch file, or from the command line. However to
change the APPEND path after APPEND has been loaded for the first
time, you must run APPEND from COMMAND.COM, not from 4DOS. To do
this, enter the following command (modify the command
appropriately if COMMAND.COM is not in the directory C:\):
c:\command /c append [new append path list]
You could also set up a 4DOS alias to do the above command for
you, for example:
alias app `c:\command /c append`
which would be invoked with the command
app [new path list]
The /X switch can be used, and it will affect 4DOS directory
searches for many 4DOS commands (as it does for COMMAND.COM).
Please note that this makes APPEND very dangerous: if you APPEND
a directory with /X and then (say) delete *.BAK when no such
files exist in the current directory, then the .BAK files in the
APPENDed directory will be deleted instead.
The APPEND /E switch will not work with 4DOS.
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 10
! CAUTION: In our opinion APPEND is a dangerous command. It is
capable of "fooling" programs into thinking they are accessing
one file when they are really accessing another one with the same
name in a different directory. This can either do just what you
want, or cause all sorts of trouble, depending on the
circumstances. In particular, this behavior can cause 4DOS to
place descriptions which go with files in one directory in the
description file for another directory, because with APPEND
running 4DOS can't tell whether APPEND has opened a file
different from the one it asked for.
If you must use APPEND to make certain applications work, we
STRONGLY suggest that you set up the aliases described above, and
load APPEND in AUTOEXEC.BAT with an empty path. Then, for each
application, set up an alias to run it that is similar to the
following (this alias uses the "app" alias defined above):
alias myprog `app c:\mydata^d:\util\myprog.exe^app ;`
This alias sets the APPEND path, runs the application, and clears
the APPEND path. When used in this way APPEND is less likely to
cause trouble because it is disabled except when it is explicitly
needed.
In MS-DOS 4.0 and above, and in OS/2 2.0 and above, the APPEND
/PATH:OFF switch mitigates this problem somewhat; in particular
it will keep 4DOS file description files from getting mixed up
between directories. For this reason 4DOS will automatically set
this switch if it detects that you are running APPEND under DOS
4.0 or above, or under OS/2 2.0 or above.
MS-DOS 6.x DBLSPACE and DRVSPACE:
4DOS fully supports DBLSPACE and DRVSPACE compressed drives. You
can display and sort by compression ratios on these drives with
the DIR /C and /O:c switches (the same switches also work with
SELECT). See your Reference Manual or the online help for
details on these switches.
MS-DOS 6.x HELP Command:
MS-DOS 6.0 and above include a complete on-line help system.
Most of the time you probably won't need to access that system,
because all of the internal commands and most external DOS
utilities it discusses are also covered by the 4DOS help system.
The MS-DOS 6 help also includes information on some commands
which are not covered by the 4DOS help system. These include
more complex parts of MS-DOS 6 such as DBLSPACE (a disk
compression utility) and MEMMAKER; some commands which are not
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 11
relevant to 4DOS users; and some rarely-used commands. (A
complete list is available in the MS-DOS 6 topic in the 4DOS
online help system.)
If you need to access MS-DOS 6 help for information on such
topics, you can do so with an alias like this one, which assigns
the command DOSHELP to load the MS-DOS 6 help system:
alias doshelp c:\dos\help.com
If you prefer, you can use the HELP command to refer to MS-DOS
6.0 help and another command such as 4DHELP to run 4DOS help.
For example:
alias help c:\dos\help.com
alias 4dhelp *help
In all of the above aliases, adjust the path used if your DOS
files are not in the C:\DOS directory. For more information on
aliases see the ALIAS command in your 4DOS manual or the online
4DOS help.
MS-DOS FASTOPEN Command:
The MS-DOS FASTOPEN command generally works with 4DOS, but does
not properly detect renamed directories, and may have similar
problems when directories are removed. This is a problem in
FASTOPEN, not in 4DOS. If you use FASTOPEN and rename a
directory with the 4DOS REN command, then do a DIR command, you
may see the old name and not the new one displayed; you may also
occasionally have trouble accessing files under the new name.
You can usually solve this problem by including a DiskReset = Yes
directive in 4DOS.INI. If DiskReset = Yes does not work, the
only other solution we are aware of is to reboot your system
after renaming a directory.
Our opinion is that, if you have the memory to support it, a disk
caching program will provide a much greater and more effective
performance improvement than FASTOPEN (but don't run both at the
same time!).
MS-DOS 4.0 and above FORMAT /S and SYS Commands:
The FORMAT /S and SYS commands in DOS 4 and above will copy
4DOS.COM to a newly formatted floppy disk and rename it
COMMAND.COM, which may not be what you want and is confusing at
best. See the discussion of "4DOS and DOS" in the 4DOS
Introduction and Installation Guide for more information on this
issue.
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 12
MS-DOS 6.x MEMMAKER Command:
4DOS version 5.5 is fully compatible with MemMaker.
MemMaker adds commands to the end of your AUTOEXEC.BAT file
during its operation, and removes them when it is finished. If
for some reason you have used a QUIT command in AUTOEXEC.BAT,
remove it before running MemMaker. Otherwise, MemMaker's
commands will not run and the memory optimization process will
not work properly.
MS-DOS 6.x MOVE Command:
MS-DOS 6 includes an external MOVE command which is generally
compatible with the 4DOS MOVE command.
The syntax and features of the MS-DOS 6 MOVE command are slightly
different than those offered by 4DOS's MOVE, so batch files
written for one command may not work exactly the same way with
the other, especially if more advanced or complex features are
used. If you write batch files which use both commands, check
the 4DOS and MS-DOS 6 documentation for your particular usage.
MS-DOS 4.0 and above SELECT Command:
In MS-DOS 4.0 and above, a SELECT command was included. This
external command is totally unrelated to the 4DOS internal SELECT
command. If you need to use both, you can set up aliases to
adjust how the command names are handled. For example, the
following two aliases set up SELECT to access the DOS 4.0
external SELECT command (assumed to be stored in
C:\DOS\SELECT.EXE), and SEL to access the internal 4DOS SELECT
command:
alias select c:\dos\select.exe
alias sel *select
MS-DOS / PC-DOS 6.x SMARTDRV Disk Cache:
5.5 Under PC-DOS 6.1 and above, and MS-DOS 6.2 and above, COMMAND.COM
instructs SMARTDRV to write all cached data to the disk before
the command prompt is displayed.
4DOS offers the same capability, but you must enable it by adding
the following line to your 4DOS.INI file:
SDFlush = Yes
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 13
SDFLUSH works with PC-DOS 6.1 and MS-DOS 6.2 as described above.
In addition, SDFLUSH will work with MS-DOS 6.0 SMARTDRV. You may
find this to be an improvement over MS-DOS 6.0 COMMAND.COM, which
does not offer a similar feature.
1DIR+ (Bourbaki): [**]
1DIR+ will work properly under 4DOS in its partially resident or
EMS modes when set up as described below. It will work in its
fully resident mode but cannot reliably exit back to 4DOS once
started.
If your copy of 1DIR+ is set up for fully resident mode, you can
load it into memory under 4DOS to switch it to partially resident
or EMS mode. To do so, from the directory where you normally run
1DIR+, type the commands:
setdos /l1
1dirplus
When 1DIR+ starts go to the "Wonder" / "Setup" menu and switch
the mode to partially resident or EMS. Hit Esc to exit, and take
the "Exit/Save" option (not "Save/Reset"). Back at the main
menu, exit with "Wonder" / "Exit". At this point the system will
probably hang. Reboot your computer. You should then be able to
run 1DIR+ as described below.
The above steps only need to be done once, when you install or
re-install 1DIR+.
Once 1DIR+ is set to EMS or partially-resident mode, you can
start it from 4DOS using the following alias:
alias 1dir `setdos /L1 ^ 1dirplus`
The SETDOS /L1 is necessary to allow 1DIR+ to send command lines
to 4DOS.
You must do a SETDOS /L0 when you are done with 1DIR+ in order to
get normal 4DOS command-line editing back. You can NOT do this
within the alias above, as 1DIR+ returns to 4DOS in order to
accomplish its work, and you don't want to switch back to /L0
mode until 1DIRPLUS has been removed from memory. If, after
exiting from 1DIR+, you find that 4DOS's command line editing and
history are unavailable, it is because you forgot to do the
SETDOS /L0. If you go in and out of 1DIR+ regularly aliases like
the following can be used to make the process quick:
alias 1d `setdos /L1 ^ 1dirplus`
alias 1e setdos /L0
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 14
If you run batch files from the 1DIRPLUS "compose" feature, you
may find that INPUT commands in the batch file don't work
properly unless they are preceded by SETDOS /L0. You must also
do a SETDOS /L1 before the end of the batch file, or 1DIRPLUS
won't pop up properly when the batch file is finished. For
example:
setdos /l0
input Enter your name: %%name
setdos /l1
ANSI.SYS (various manufacturers):
If you have trouble with screen scrolling in 43-line or 50-line
mode, try a different version of ANSI. We have had good results
with PC Magazine's free utility ANSI.COM, and with the ANSI-
UV.SYS program distributed with Personics' UltraVision EGA / VGA
enhancement software.
Some display-related device drivers may "fool" 4DOS into thinking
an ANSI driver is present when this is not the case. If this
happens you will see ANSI strings like "[2J" displayed on-screen
when you use the CLS and COLOR commands. To correct the problem,
place an ANSI = No directive in 4DOS.INI, or a SETDOS /A2 command
in AUTOEXEC.BAT.
Similarly, 4DOS may not be able to detect some ANSI drivers, in
which case the colors you set with CLS and COLOR will not be
"sticky" (i.e. they will be lost when you run an application, or
otherwise change the display color). To correct the problem,
place an ANSI = Yes directive in 4DOS.INI, or a SETDOS /A1
command in AUTOEXEC.BAT.
Bookshelf CD-ROM (Microsoft): [**]
Microsoft Bookshelf uses the environment variable CDPATH, which
is also used (for a totally different purpose) by 4DOS. If you
are using MS Bookshelf and want to set a CDPATH variable for
4DOS, set _CDPATH instead. 4DOS will search for _CDPATH first;
when it is found, 4DOS will use it, and ignore CDPATH.
DESQview (Quarterdeck):
4DOS works well as both the primary shell loaded before DESQview,
and as the secondary shell loaded inside any DESQview window.
The general information about multitaskers in Chapter 3 of the
4DOS Introduction and Installation Guide applies to DESQview as
well. You should read it before continuing with this discussion.
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 15
To use 4DOS as a secondary shell with DESQview, you must add it
to your DESQview "Open Window" menu. To do this, select the Add
a Program option, then press the "O" key (for Other Program).
Press Enter and you will get an Add a Program window. You'll
need to modify settings on the standard first screen, and on the
second "advanced options" screen. Set the Program Name to
C:\4DOS\4DOS.COM (adjust the drive and path for your own
computer). Set the Parameters to whatever 4DOS startup options
you want, but do not use /C or /P. For other DESQview
parameters, the defaults are workable with the following changes:
To run 4DOS in a full-screen window:
Writes Text Directly to Screen: Y (screen 1)
Virtualize Text / Graphics: N (screen 1)
Close on Exit to DOS: Y (screen 2)
Uses its Own Colors: Y (screen 2)
To run 4DOS in a window smaller than the full screen:
Writes Text Directly to Screen: N (screen 1)
Virtualize Text / Graphics: Y/T (screen 1)
Close on Exit to DOS: Y (screen 2)
Uses its Own Colors: Y (screen 2)
4DOS is written to be "DESQview-aware", and will not "bleed
through" to other windows when running full-screen commands such
as HELP, LIST, or SELECT.
You should normally exit a DESQview 4DOS window with the EXIT
command, rather than with the Close option on DESQview's main
menu. If you do use the Close option while at the 4DOS prompt,
4DOS will be notified of your action and will clean up its
resources (for example, the shell number and disk swap file in
use in that window). However this notification has a side-
effect: it disables the Quit option on the DESQview main menu
(this is a feature of DESQview). To disable the notification and
reenable the Quit option, you can use a DVCleanup = No directive
in 4DOS.INI. If you do so, be sure to exit 4DOS windows with the
EXIT command to avoid leaving stray swap files on your disk or
inadvertently using up 4DOS shell numbers.
Some users report that DESQview uses all upper memory space when
it loads, leaving no upper memory available to 4DOS. If you have
UMBLoad and / or UMBEnvironment set to Yes in 4DOS.INI, this will
result in a couple of harmless error messages when 4DOS is
started under DESQview. To eliminate these messages, place the
following lines at the end of 4DOS.INI:
[Secondary]
UMBLoad = No
UMBEnvironment = No
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 16
DESQview includes the ability to assign "logical drives" to
subdirectory paths to make access to commonly used directories
easier, or to support older applications that can't handle
subdirectories. This is similar to the DOS SUBST command. 4DOS
commands like DIR and COPY may not work as you expect on DESQview
logical drives, because DESQview does not support certain
standard DOS calls which 4DOS uses to determine whether a name
you enter is the name of a file or a subdirectory. If you are
using specific filenames without wildcards, 4DOS commands will
generally work properly on DESQview logical drives. However
problems may occur with "implied wildcards" (for example, when
4DOS interprets DIR A* as DIR A*.*), filename completion, and
other wildcard file access. We know of no circumstances where
these problems would cause a loss of data. However for the sake
of safety, when using DESQview logical drives we suggest you use
the /N switches on commands like COPY and MOVE to verify the
command's operation before files are actually modified.
Under 4DOS, the DESQview DOS Services option will not work in its
default configuration. To make DOS Services work under 4DOS, you
must first create a batch file, DOSSERV.BAT, in your DESQview
directory to run DOS Services under COMMAND.COM. (We are
assuming that DESQview is in directory C:\DV and COMMAND.COM is
in directory C:\; you will need to modify the settings below if
your system is configured differently.) The batch file is:
set comspec=c:\command.com
c:\dv\dosserv
c:\command
exit
Then, make the following changes on the DESQview change a program
screen for DOS Services (items marked ** are on the second page
of the screen):
* Memory Allocation = 128K or greater
* Program Name = C:\DV\DOSSERV.BAT (modify from
previous value of C:\DV\DOSSERV).
** Close on Exit to DOS = N
** System Memory = 10K or greater
** Allow Close Window = N
Once these steps are taken, you should be able to open the DOS
Services window normally. However you will not be able to close
it with a close window command. Instead, go to the window where
DOS Services allows you to compose a DOS command, and type EXIT
to close the window.
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 17
DOORWAY BBS Software:
DOORWAY uses the caret [^] in certain command line arguments.
4DOS will interpret this symbol as a command separator, and will
not pass the line to DOORWAY properly. You can work around this
problem by changing your 4DOS command separator permanently (with
the CommandSep directive in 4DOS.INI) or temporarily when
starting DOORWAY (with the SETDOS /C command), or by using the
4DOS escape character (ctrl-X) before each caret in the DOORWAY
command line.
DR DOS / Novell DOS (Novell):
4DOS will work properly as a command processor (including as the
primary shell) under DR DOS / Novell DOS 3.4 and above, including
Novell DOS 7.0. Some aspects of using 4DOS with DR DOS / Novell
DOS are discussed in Chapter 3 of the 4DOS Introduction and
Installation Guide. Be sure to read that information before
continuing with this section.
Internal vs. External Commands:
DR DOS 5.0's design makes the ASSIGN, JOIN, MORE, and SUBST
commands internal (in MS-DOS / PC-DOS they are external).
4DOS supports all MS-DOS internal commands, but does not have
internal support for ASSIGN, JOIN, MORE, and SUBST. To
access these DR DOS internal commands when using 4DOS as the
command processor, you must set up aliases which run DR DOS's
COMMAND.COM. The following 4DOS aliases accomplish this
(adjust these if COMMAND.COM is not in C:\):
alias assign `c:\command /c assign %&`
alias join `c:\command /c join %&`
alias more `c:\command /c more %&`
alias subst `c:\command /c subst %&`
In DR DOS 6 and above, ASSIGN, JOIN, and SUBST were changed
back to external commands, so the corresponding aliases are
not necessary.
For the MORE command, a much better alternative can be set up
by aliasing it to the 4DOS LIST command:
alias more list /s
This provides a scrollable, full-screen display rather than
the simple paged display offered by DR DOS (or MS-DOS) MORE.
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 18
CONFIG.SYS SETs:
DR DOS and Novell DOS allow you to put SET commands in
CONFIG.SYS to set environment variables. 4DOS will retrieve
this information and store it in the 4DOS environment, as DR
DOS / Novell DOS COMMAND.COM does.
5.5 TASKMAX:
4DOS will work with TASKMAX and TASKMGR (we refer to both as
TASKMAX here), as long as you start new tasks according to
the instructions below.
You may need to experiment with the UMBLoad directive in
4DOS.INI when running TASKMAX. Depending on your system
configuration and your version of TASKMAX, using
UMBLoad = Yes may make the system more or less stable. We do
recommend that you use UMBLoad = Yes if it works on your
system, as this allows 4DOS better control over secondary
shell startups under TASKMAX.
When using 4DOS with TASKMAX you generally can NOT use the
Ins key on the TASKMAX menu to start new tasks. If you do,
your system will hang. This is due to assumptions TASKMAX
must make when starting new tasks. These assumptions are
valid for COMMAND.COM, but not for 4DOS.
Under Novell DOS 7.0 you can avoid this provblem easily, by
telling TASKMGR to start a new shell when a new task is
initiated. To do so, check the TASKMGR.INI file for these
lines:
[Shell]
Exec=False
Change the second line to read:
Exec=True
Once this is done, you should be able to use Ins to start new
tasks without any difficulties.
The method described above is not available under DR DOS 6
and below; you must use the TASKMAX /C command instead. For
example, this command:
taskmax /c c:\4dos.com
will start a new secondary copy of 4DOS as a new task,, and
display a prompt. The same approach should be used when
starting any task which needs a command processor. To start
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 19
a task which runs a .BTM or .BAT file, use a command like
this:
taskmax /c c:\4dos.com /c startwp.bat
This tells 4DOS to run the specified batch file, and exit
automatically (removing the task from the task list) when the
batch file is done.
If you have tasks you start regularly using the approach
described above, use a batch file or a set of 4DOS aliases to
help automate the process.
Epsilon (Lugaru Software): [**]
Epsilon can run 4DOS as a concurrent process, and pass commands
to 4DOS for execution. In this mode it traps 4DOS's input
requests and feeds the keystrokes to 4DOS. However it does not
feed backspaces etc. -- only actual characters. This means that
editing of input isn't seen by 4DOS. To fix the problem, either
run 4DOS as a shell, and not as a concurrent process, or use a
SETDOS /L1 for the copy of 4DOS that is run under Epsilon.
To use the more flexible SETDOS /L1 approach you must use
4START.BAT (or .BTM) to set up the SETDOS /L1 before running
Epsilon. Epsilon sets the environment variable EPSRUNS=Y
whenever it starts a secondary shell; you can use this variable
to set up 4START to work with Epsilon. Place the following line
in 4START to issue the SETDOS /L1 command in a secondary shell
started by Epsilon, but ignore it otherwise:
if "%epsruns"=="Y" setdos /l1
FASTIO (Cyrix): [**]
5.5 The FASTIO hardware utility (distributed with some systems
containing Cyrix microprocessors) contains a bug which can hang
your system if FASTIO is run under 4DOS. The hang will occur any
time Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Break is pressed after FASTIO runs. This bug
has been fixed by Cyrix; contact your system vendor for a
corrected version of FASTIO.
FoxPro (Microsoft): [**]
FoxPro works well with 4DOS, but may have trouble if 4DOS or the
master environment is loaded high (in a UMB). If you experience
compatibility problems between FoxPro and 4DOS, try removing any
UMBEnvironment = Yes line in 4DOS.INI; if that doesn't help, try
removing any UMBLoad = Yes line as well.
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 20
Hijaak (Inset Systems):
4DOS is generally compatible with Hijaak. However the DOSCAP
utility can sometimes interfere with 4DOS's disk swap file,
causing the system to hang. If you experience a problem with
DOSCAP and disk swapping, configure your system to swap to EMS or
XMS memory.
LapLink (Traveling Software): [**]
LapLink's "self-cloning" feature may not work properly with
4DOS's CTTY command. If you need to use the self-cloning
feature, start a temporary copy of COMMAND.COM first (see
"Running 4DOS along with COMMAND.COM" at the beginning of this
file for details).
NDIS Network Drivers:
Under 4DOS, some NDIS network drivers may hang your system when
the NETBIND program is run in AUTOEXEC.BAT. This is because
these drivers use memory without allocating it, and 4DOS is then
unable to avoid overwriting the memory used by the drivers. When
NETBIND runs it attempts to use the corrupted memory area, and
the system hangs. If you have this problem, you can solve it
using the following steps:
(1) Add this line to 4DOS.INI:
MaxLoadAddress=448
(2) Make sure that NETBIND is the FIRST external program to
run after 4DOS starts. Do not run ANY other external program
prior to NETBIND, in either 4START or AUTOEXEC.
(3) If you cannot run NETBIND first, add a SWAPPING OFF
command at the beginning of AUTOEXEC, and a SWAPPING ON
command immediately before NETBIND is run. However, we
strongly recommend that you run NETBIND first if at all
possible.
Many NDIS drivers do not exhibit this problem; if your NDIS
drivers work properly, there is no need to make the changes shown
above.
Netware (Novell):
Before reading this information be sure you have read the section
on 4DOS and Novell Netware in Chapter 3 of the 4DOS Introduction
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 21
and Installation Guide. The discussion below covers certain
specific problems; if your copy of 4DOS is working properly with
Netware, you may not need to read it at all. See the following
section for details on using 4DOS with diskless workstations
under Novell Netware.
Some versions of Netware may occasionally produce a "pipe not
found" message when loading under 4DOS. This message refers to
Netware features related to COMMAND.COM, and does not apply to
4DOS; the message can be ignored.
If you use the 4DOS FOR (@filename) command or the %@FILEOPEN and
%@FILEREAD variable functions to process lines from a file, you
may find that the read is terminated after the first line. This
is because Netware is closing the file before 4DOS is finished
with it. To work around this problem, add the following line to
your NET.CFG or SHELL.CFG file (SHELL.CFG is used in older
versions of Netware, and NET.CFG in more recent versions):
EOJ=OFF
In certain extremely rare circumstances using EOJ=OFF can leave
files open on your server if an application does not close them
properly. We have never seen this problem occur in practice but
you may wish to keep it in mind if you must use EOJ=OFF to
prevent Netware from closing files you are processing.
If you use 4DOS input redirection in a .BAT file which resides on
a Netware drive, you may experience incorrect file assignments on
some systems. When this occurs, an application run from within
the batch file, or a secondary shell run from such an
application, may loop forever attempting to read lines from the
batch file rather than accepting input from the keyboard. For
example:
copy /r *.* g: < YES
wp
rem Now if the user shells from WP, the system will
rem loop forever reading lines from the batch file or
rem blank lines at the prompt.
This problem occurs because Netware does not handle file
assignments properly when 4DOS input redirection is used in a
.BAT file. We are still awaiting a solution to this problem from
Novell. You can work around it in several ways:
* Change the batch file to a .BTM file.
* Place the file BTM mode with the LOADBTM command at any
point prior to the use of input redirection.
* Move the file to a non-Netware drive.
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 22
* User reports indicate that adding a line which does a
"dummy" output redirection just before the input redirection
will prevent the problem from occurring. For example:
echo This is junk > junk.dat
copy /r *.* g: < YES
wp
del junk.dat
When loading a secondary 4DOS shell under Netware you can swap to
a network drive if you wish, but you MUST set SwapReopen = Yes in
4DOS.INI, or Netware will close the file and 4DOS will halt with
a swap file error. You can also avoid this problem by swapping
to EMS, XMS, or a local hard disk or RAM disk.
The UMBLoad directive in 4DOS.INI is compatible with Netware.
The UMBEnvironment directive is compatible with Netware 3.11 and
above, but not with earlier versions.
Netware Diskless Workstations (Novell):
4DOS can be set up to run properly on Novell Netware diskless
workstations which boot from the server. To do so, you must make
several changes to 4DOS.INI and your other startup files as
detailed below. The goal of all these changes is to ensure that
there is NO access to the boot drive after the network software
is loaded.
In the discussion below, the term "boot image" refers to files on
the A: drive image set up to boot the workstation. This text
assumes that your 4DOS files are in the server directory
F:\SYSTEM\4DOS; be SURE to substitute the appropriate path for
your network!
The 4DOS directory on the server should contain at least a copy
of 4DOS.COM, 4HELP.EXE, and 4DOS.HLP. In this description we
assume other files like secondary copies of 4START and 4DOS.INI
are stored there as well. You can move any of these files to
another network directory if you change the corresponding
directive below.
1) Place a copy of 4DOS.COM into the boot image and be sure the
SHELL command in the boot image CONFIG.SYS looks like this:
SHELL=\4DOS.COM @\4DOS.INI /P
2) Create a boot image 4DOS.INI file if you don't have one. Add
these lines to the file:
4StartPath=\
AutoExecPath=\
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 23
HelpPath=F:\SYSTEM\4DOS\
NextINIFile=F:\SYSTEM\4DOS\4DOS.INI
This forces secondary copies of 4DOS to read the INI file from
the network, and not from the boot drive. Any directives which
you might normally put in the [Secondary] section of 4DOS.INI
should go into this file (see step 7), and not in the 4DOS.INI
file that is part of the boot image.
3) If you want a 4START file for the primary shell, create one
and make it part of the boot image.
4) Rename your boot image AUTOEXEC file to AUTOEXEC.BTM. 4DOS
reads each line of a BAT file separately, and keeping AUTOEXEC as
a BAT file will therefore cause access to the boot image drive
after the network is loaded.
This advice violates the usual rule that TSRs should not be
loaded from a BTM file. As a result you will have a small "hole"
in memory when AUTOEXEC is done. Generally such holes waste a
small amount of memory, but cause no other trouble, and users
have not reported any ill effects from this approach.
5) Be sure that in AUTOEXEC.BTM you switch the current drive and
directory to a network drive and directory at some point before
the file terminates, for example with a command like CDD F:\.
Otherwise, the current drive will remain the boot drive and 4DOS
will attempt to access that drive.
Also be sure that you set the COMSPEC variable to the copy of
4DOS on the network, for example:
SET COMSPEC=F:\SYSTEM\4DOS\4DOS.COM
If you don't, secondary shells will not work properly from
applications run on the workstation.
6) Create a new boot image AUTOEXEC.BAT file with one line in it
which reads:
AUTOEXEC.BTM
This transfers control to the AUTOEXEC.BTM file as soon as 4DOS
starts.
7) Create the secondary INI file <4DOS path>\4DOS.INI (the one
referred to in the NextINIFile directive in step 2 above), and
put at least the following line in it:
4StartPath=F:\SYSTEM\4DOS\
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 24
This forces 4DOS to find 4START and 4EXIT for secondary shells on
the network drive, and prevents it from attempting to look for
these files on the boot drive. There need not be a 4START or
4EXIT file in this directory, but if you do want to use 4START or
4EXIT for secondary shells they must be in the specified network
directory.
Any other 4DOS.INI directives for secondary shells should also go
into this file, and not in the 4DOS.INI file that is part of the
boot image.
8) If you wish to swap secondary shells to a network drive add
this line to the secondary 4DOS.INI file:
SwapReopen=Yes
After these changes are made, generate a boot image and set up
the diskless workstation normally. 4DOS should start and operate
properly when you boot the workstation.
OS/2 1.x, 2.x, and 3.x (IBM):
4DOS works properly as the shell in OS/2 DOS sessions under OS/2
1.2, 1.3, 2.0, 2.1, and 3.0, including OS/2 "Warp" and OS/2 for
Windows. For complete details see Chapter 4 of the 4DOS
Introduction and Installation Guide.
If you see a message like "Cannot find OSO001.MSG" when running
external utilities like TREE or DISKCOPY in OS/2 DOS sessions,
you probably need to include the line:
loadhigh append c:\os2;c:\os2\system
in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file used by these DOS sessions, or set up
the append path in an alias or batch file used to run such
programs (change the drive letter if OS/2 is installed on a
different drive). Be sure to read the notes and cautions on
MS-DOS APPEND on page 10 of this file before using APPEND.
If you use OS/2, you will probably want to use our companion
product 4OS2 in your OS/2 sessions. See the ORDERINF.DOC file
for more information.
QEMM and QRAM (Quarterdeck):
Both QEMM and QRAM are compatible with 4DOS, and will allow you
to load the 4DOS resident code and the master environment into
high DOS memory (UMBs) via the UMBLoad and UMBEnvironment
directives in 4DOS.INI. For these directives to work with QRAM
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 25
you must have QEXT loaded also (this is the normal method of
loading QRAM).
QEMM's Stealth mode is compatible with 4DOS, but can decrease
general system stability on some systems. If you have unusual
problems or system hangs with Stealth turned on, try turning it
off and see if the problems clear up (this is the procedure
recommended by Quarterdeck in their Stealth documentation).
If you use FILES.COM to load part of the DOS file handle table
into high memory, you must follow Quarterdeck's recommendations
and keep a minimum of FILES=8 in CONFIG.SYS. Lower values may
cause 4DOS to hang during boot, especially if disk swapping is
used.
5.5 If you use QEMM's OPTIMIZE and your AUTOEXEC has 4DOS-specific
commands like GLOBAL, IFF, aliases, etc., OPTIMIZE will recognize
them based on the 4DOS.CMD file distributed with QEMM. This
ASCII file contains a simple list of 4DOS commands. If you have
a version of 4DOS.CMD created before 4DOS 5.5 was released, you
may want to add the new FFIND command to it to make it complete.
To use 4DOS.CMD it must be renamed to OPTIMIZE.EXC before running
OPTIMIZE; see your QEMM documentation for details.
5.5 If you have used aliases to redefine standard internal commands
like COPY (for example, to ensure that COPY always prompts you
before replacing an existing file), QEMM's OPTIMIZE may not
always work properly because the commands will not perform as it
expects. Before running OPTIMIZE you may want to temporarily
disable any 4DOS aliases (e.g., with a REM on the line(s) in
AUTOEXEC.BAT or 4START which load the aliases).
If you load 4DOS or 4DOS data blocks into upper memory, you can
specify a particular upper memory region with UMBLoad and other
similar directives in 4DOS.INI. QEMM offers similar region
selection capability for the command processor through its LOADHI
command. We recommend that you use the 4DOS internal directives
for this purpose, rather than using LOADHI to select a specific
region for 4DOS.
RBase (MicroRim): [**]
When used with 4DOS disk swapping, some versions of RBase close
4DOS's swap file when they exit. This generates "4DOS
Unrecoverable error DS" and other similar fatal error messages.
You can avoid this problem by changing 4DOS swapping to EMS or
XMS, or by setting SwapReopen = Yes in 4DOS.INI.
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 26
RoboComm Communications Software: [**]
If you have trouble shelling out of RoboComm (for example, to use
an external protocol like DSZ), try increasing the setting for
Files and Extract memory to 256K.
Software Carousel (SoftLogic Solutions):
Please see the general section on multitaskers in chapter 3 of
the 4DOS Introduction and Installation Guide before reading this
section.
The information below applies to all versions of Software
Carousel.
Software Carousel will not work properly with 4DOS loaded as the
primary shell. It is designed with the assumption that
COMMAND.COM is the system command processor, and contains logic
which specifically depends on COMMAND.COM and the way it is
written, and which actually modifies the copy of COMMAND.COM in
memory. This makes it impossible to write a program which works
properly as an alternate command processor loaded underneath
(i.e. before) Software Carousel.
However, 4DOS can be run without difficulty inside a Software
Carousel partition, if the instructions below are followed.
When loading 4DOS into a Carousel partition, the best method is
to leave the COMSPEC set to COMMAND.COM when Carousel is loaded.
4DOS should then be set up in the Carousel options file just like
any other program. For example, to load 4DOS into partition 1:
d:\path\4DOS.COM [parameters] [filename]
where:
d:\path is the drive and path where 4DOS.COM is
located
[parameters] is any 4DOS command line parameters (/E,
@ininame, etc.; do NOT use /P here)
[filename] is the name of a batch file to be executed
when the partition is started
To use different 4DOS.INI files for different Software Carousel
partitions, use the "@ininame" parameter in the "parameters"
section of your Carousel setup to invoke a specific file. For
example, the parameters could be set to @D:\WP\4DOSWP.INI to use
that initialization file for the WP partition.
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 27
Because 4DOS can only be loaded in a partition when running
Software Carousel, and not as the primary command processor,
using 4DOS disk swapping in multiple partitions is subject to the
cautionary note on this subject in the general information
section on multitaskers in Chapter 3 of the 4DOS Introduction and
Installation Guide; please read it carefully. As stated in that
note, if you use disk swapping you will probably want to use the
UniqueSwapName directive in 4DOS.INI to avoid swap file name
conflicts.
Stacker (Stac Electronics):
4DOS fully supports Stacker compressed drives. The 4DOS DIR and
SELECT commands cannot display compression ratios on Stacker
drives, because certain information required for this function is
not readily available to 4DOS under the current Stacker software.
SuperStor (AddStor, Novell):
4DOS fully supports SuperStor compressed drives, under both the
stand-alone version of SuperStor from AddStor, and the version of
SuperStor bundled with DR DOS / Novell DOS. You can display and
sort by compression ratios on SuperStor drives with the DIR /C
and /O:c switches (the same switches also work with SELECT). See
your Reference Manual or the online help for details on these
switches.
TSRCOM Utilities (TurboPower Software):
The TSRCOM utilities will work properly with 4DOS as long as you
use TSRCOM version 2.6 or later. The current release is version
3.5, and is available on the 4DOS Utility Disk and on many
bulletin boards and on-line systems.
If you use TSRCOM's MARK and RELEASE to manage your TSRs, 4DOS
swapping (as set with the SWAPPING command) must be in the same
state when RELEASE is run as it was when MARK (or FMARK) was run.
This is a characteristic of the design of MARK and RELEASE (or
any other such products), and not a bug. If you do not observe
this rule (for example, if you run MARK with SWAPPING OFF in
AUTOEXEC and later run RELEASE from the prompt with SWAPPING ON),
you may receive unusual error messages or hang your system. The
same restriction applies to MARKNET and RELNET.
UltraVision (Personics):
The DE program distributed with UltraVision is written
specifically for COMMAND.COM, and cannot be used to set directory
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 28
colors with 4DOS. Use 4DOS's built-in directory colorization
instead.
Windows 3.x (Microsoft):
Most information about Windows is in chapter 3 of the 4DOS
Introduction and Installation Guide. 4DOS has been tested
thoroughly and works well with Windows.
Under some circumstances you may find that Windows overrides the
environment size specified in your 4DOS.INI file, and creates a
smaller environment. This can leave insufficient environment
space for your 4DOS sessions running under Windows. If you
experience this problem, edit the SYSTEM.INI file in your Windows
directory, and find the section labelled [NonWindowsApp]. Add
the following line to this section:
CommandEnvSize = 0
This tells Windows not to force a particular environment size,
which will allow 4DOS to set the size itself.
If you set up a PIF file for 4DOS, be sure to allow your 4DOS
sessions access to the same type of memory used to swap your
primary shell. If you do not, your Windows sessions may not be
able to retrieve aliases and the command history from the primary
shell. For example, if the primary shell swaps to XMS memory,
and you set the XMS memory limit to 0 in the PIF file, your 4DOS
sessions under Windows may start without inheriting aliases and
history from the primary shell.
If you set up a PIF file please note that the 4DOS MEMORY command
will report the maximum amount of EMS memory which Windows can
theoretically make available in that window. Because Windows
provides a virtual memory capability, this number may be much
larger than the size of physical RAM. For example, if you set
the EMS Limit in your PIF file to -1, Windows will report total
EMS memory of 64 MB to 4DOS as this is the theoretical limit on
Windows' virtual memory manager. Virtual memory figures which
give the appearance of excess memory are a feature of Windows,
and not a bug in 4DOS.
XyWrite (XyQuest): [**]
XyWrite's "shell to DOS" capability shells to COMMAND.COM, even
if you have your COMSPEC variable set to 4DOS. The only way we
know of to work around the problem is to make a copy of 4DOS.COM
and call it COMMAND.COM. If you do this, be sure to save the
real COMMAND.COM in another directory in case you need it for
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 29
another purpose. Some users have reported that the same problem
occurs with Signature, a newer word processor from XyQuest.
Programs Requiring PATH to be Under 128 Characters:
The following programs contain bugs which prevent them from
working properly if you have a PATH which is over 128 characters
long. Since 4DOS allows you to create a PATH up to 255
characters long this can appear to be a conflict between the
program involved and 4DOS. If your path is longer than 128
characters, see Appendix A of the 4DOS Introduction and
Installation Guide for information on creating a batch file to
reduce the PATH length while one of these programs is running.
Checkit (Touchstone): [**] Checkit version 3 requires a
path length under 128 characters.
Computer Select CD-ROM (Ziff-Davis): [**] Computer Select
cannot find its help program if your PATH is over 128
characters long.
RenderMan (AutoDesk): RenderMan will hang your system if it
is started with a PATH longer than 128 characters.
VINES Network (Banyan): [**] VINES' installation may not
work properly if your PATH is longer than 128 characters.
Windows 3.0 (Microsoft): The Windows 3 Setup Applications
option, which scans your disk drives for applications to be
added to Windows program groups, will not work properly if
your PATH is more than 128 characters long. This problem is
fixed in Windows 3.1.
5.5 Word for Windows 6.0 (Microsoft): The Word for Windows
version 6 help system will not work properly if your PATH is
more than 128 characters long. This problem is fixed in Word
for Windows 6.0a and above.
4DOS 5.5 [10-12-94] APPNOTES.DOC page 30