Contents

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EZINI General Info:

OverView

Registration

Terminology and abbreviations

Editing INI files

About INI files

EZINI Functions:

Getting Started

Save Changes Button

Abort Changes Button

Change Value Button

SysEdit Button

Entry Listing Type


EZINI Overview

EZINI is an application that gives you an easy way of editing you Windows initialization (.INI) files.  It allows you to edit your WIN.INI, SYSTEM.INI and PROGMAN.INI.  The WIN.INI contains settings regarding the installed fonts, appearance of the desktop, international settings etc. The SYSTEM.INI contains settings to let windows know about your hardware setup, and many settings for standard and 386 enhanced modes. The last file, PROGMAN.INI, contains configuration setting for Program Manager.

EZINI includes most, but not all possible standard settings from the above three INI files. Some settings are not included in EZINI, because either they should not changed, or they values they contain are too variable.

Without EZINI, you would have to manually edit these files to change them, which can be a very daunting task, even if you have good reference manuals which explain all the entries.  EZINI, for the most part, will not allow you to enter an incorrect value for an entry in an INI file, although it cannot possibly have control over some settings.  Some settings are available in EZINI which are more easily, and safely, changed by another means, such as Control Panel or Windows Setup.


EZINI Registration

EZINI is SHAREWARE.

What is SHAREWARE?  ShareWare is software that is freely distributed to people so they can try it before they buy it.  When you receive a copy of a shareware program, you are given a specified period of time, in which you may decide if you like the program and find it useful.  If you do like the program, or continue to use the program past the specified period of time, you MUST send a registration fee to the author of the program.

When you register EZINI , you will receive an updated version of the program on disk and printed documentation.

EZINI is not free, it is copyrighted  1994 by Rick Green. All rights reserved.

 EZINI registration is US$10.95 or CAN$14.95, S&H INCLUDED (This program has a retail value of US$35.95, but by using the shareware marketing method, you save $25.) You may try this program for 30 days, at the end of which you MUST register it or discontinue using it.  You are free to pass this program, in its original, unmodified form, to anyone you wish. If you find this program useful, or use it past the 30 day limit, please send a check or money order for the above amount to:

Rick Green

513 Riverdale Ave.

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

K1S 1S3

Please specify 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" floppy disk format.

You can print out the file ORDER.FRM to place your order.

If you have any questions, or comments regarding EZINI, please write to the above address.


Terms and Abbreviations

VIRTUAL MACHINE - This term is often used interchangeably with non-windows (DOS) application. A VM (Virtual Machine) is just the environment setup in which a non-windows application runs. A VM inherits the environment present before you started windows, including TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) software.

AT Machine - This term is used to denote a computer that is 100% compatible with the IBM AT architecture personal computers.

PS/2 MACHINE - This is the IBM PS/2 (Personal System 2) computers, which use the MCA bus architecture.

ISA - Or Industry Standard Architecture is the bus architecture uses is most personal computers. ISA is limited to 16-bits (8 on older machines) and 8MHZ. Newer buses (VESA Local, PCI, EISA) are more capable, and can work either faster or at 32-bits.)

MCA - The Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) is a expansion bus architecture used by IBM on its PS/2 computers, and was later adopted by a few other computer makers. MCA offered some advantages over the ISA architecture, but didn't catch on because of the added cost of expansion cards.

EISA - Enhanced Industry Standard Architecture is an enhanced version of the ISA bus in that it is capable of bus-mastering (where one card takes control of the bus, thereby increasing throughput), and is a 32-bit bus design.

DMA - Direct Memory Addressing is a mode in which the memory of your computer can be addressed directly by a device (such as your hard disk), without interaction of the CPU. Using DMA memory transfers is much quicker than non-DMA transfers.

IRQ - Interrupt ReQuest lines are hardware lines where hardware can send interrupt requests to the CPU, when it needs to interrupt what the CPU is doing to accomplish a high-priority task.  Each IRQ has a different priority level.


Editing INI Files

When you edit INI files, whether using EZINI, or manually (with NOTEPAD or SYSEDIT), you must always use caution when changing values. If you don't fully understand the changes you are making, you probably shouldn't make them. Always make a backup of your INI files BEFORE editing them. EZINI backs up your files, giving them a .EZB extension, so you can always restore the previous version of the INI file. If you edit an INI file, then discover this change had an adverse effect on windows, you should use the .EZB version of the file to restore the original settings.

As an example, if you adversely changed WIN.INI, to restore the original settings you would: copy WIN.INI to WIN.BK, then rename WIN.EZB to WIN.INI. Keep in mind that this will only restore to before the LAST time you made changes, and not any previous changes. You may want to use INWATCH (A shareware utility by Rick Green) to keep track of INI file changes.


About INI Files

Your Windows Initialization (*.INI) files are organized in the following manner:

-Each file is broken up into logical SECTIONS, like Desktop, Fonts etc.

-At the beginning of each SECTION is a section heading, which consists of the section name with square brackets around it, like [Desktop], [Windows] etc.

-Under each section heading there are several ENTRIES, consisting of the name of the entry followed by an equals sign, like Beep=Yes.

-Everything after the equals sign is called the VALUE. The value can be either a number, a string, or a boolean value. A boolean value is like a switch, either on or off, valid boolean values are: ON/OFF, TRUE/FALSE, 1/0, YES/NO. Only one of these can be entered where there is a boolean value; the case (upper/lower) doesn't matter.


Getting Started

First you need to specify the INI file you want to work with; click on the filename in the FILE list box. Once you click on a filename, the File INFO box will give a brief explanation of this file. The second step is to select the section. Each INI file is broken up into sections to logically group associated entries together. Click on the section name in the SECTION list box; the Section INFO box will show a brief explanation of this section. The third step is to select the specific Entry within the above Section that you want to change. Click on the entry name in the ENTRY list box, which will give a verbose description of that entry in the Entry INFO box.

To change an entry value, use the tab key or the mouse to select the VALUE Edit box and type the appropriate value into this box. Now click on the Change Value button, which will attempt to validate your entry before making the change to the appropriate INI file.

The Change Value button validates your entry by checking the three items in brackets at the beginning of the Entry INFO box. The first section (after the left bracket, before the first comma) denotes the type of entry, whether it is boolean (on/off, 0/1, True/False), a numeric value, or a string. the letter 'B' is used to denote a boolean, the '#' sign for a numeric value, and the letter 'S' for a string. The second section (Separated by the others by a comma, and is sometimes blank) is the valid range for this entry; if the range is 1-49, you cannot enter the number 50 as a value for this entry. The third section (The last characters before the right bracket) denotes the default value for this entry. As an example: (#,1-49,7) would indicate that this entry requires a numerical value, ranging from 1 to 49, and the default value is 7.

If the phrase 'Entry not present, used default' is in the VALUE Edit box, this indicates that that specific entry is not in the selected INI file, but that windows uses the default value. This saves space in the INI files, since if windows doesn't find an entry in the INI file, it uses the default. You are free to change the entries that aren't present, since EZINI will just add that entry to the appropriate section.

Some Sections, when selected won't display any entries in the ENTRY list box, rather they will display a message in the Entry INFO box saying that the section cannot be (or sometimes should not be) edited through EZINI. Some sections of INI files MUST NOT be edited, since they are set by windows. Some sections can be edited, but are much more easily and safely edited elsewhere, such as Control Panel or Windows Setup. Some sections contain entries that are just too variable, or non-standard, to be edited through EZINI.

After you have made changes, you can decide either to keep or lose all the changes you have made. Press the Save Changes button to save, or Abort Changes to lose the changes.


Save Changes Button

Pressing the Save Changes button will allow you to exit EZINI, saving all the configuration changes you have made. It will also give you the option of restarting windows. Most times you will need to restart windows for configuration changes to take effect.


Abort Changes Button

Pressing the Abort Changes button will allow you to exit EZINI, but you will lose all the changes you have made to your configuration files.


Change Value Button

Pressing the Change Value button will change the value for the currently highlighted Entry to the value in the VALUE box. To change the value for a specific entry, you must type the new value in the VALUE box, then press the Change Value button. Once you press this button, EZINI will check to make sure you have entered a correct value; ensures you have entered a boolean value if the entry requires boolean, the number is in the correct range etc. EZINI is not able to pick up all mistakes, since some entries (mostly string entries) allow you to put anything for the value. It is sometimes easier, and more reliable to make some changes through Control Panel or Windows Setup, although many entries included in EZINI can't be changed any way other than editing the file or using EZINI.

If the Change Value button is grayed (disabled) this indicates that either you haven't selected a Section and/or an Entry to edit, or there are no Entries in the selected Section that can be edited.


SysEdit Button

Pressing the SysEdit button will Launch the program SYSEDIT.EXE, which is included with windows. SysEdit is a program which allows you to manually edit all lines of your WIN.INI, SYSTEM.INI, CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. When you edit a file with sysedit, it saves the original file with the .SYD extension, so you have a backup, just in case. Occasionally there may be an entry or section which cannot be edited through EZINI. If this is the case you can use SysEdit to do this editing, but keep in mind that from SysEdit there is no control over the values you enter; you must be confident that the change you are making is correct.

If the SysEdit button is grayed (disabled), this means that EZINI was unable to locate this file in your windows system directory, where it normally resides. If you have moved this file to another location, moving or copying it back to the system directory will give you access to it through EZINI.


Entry Listing Type

There are two radio buttons in the Entry Listing Type. These control the length, or user level of the listing provided in the ENTRY list box. Click on Short to view a short, or beginner level list of entries. Click on Long to full the long, or full list of entries. The short list will present the most common entries that users need to change. The long list will show all the entries available to EZINI.