GENERAL INTRODUCTION In keeping with our commitment to provide you, the user, with support that will maximize your productivity with the dBASE IV product, we are continuing our tradition of publishing timely, detailed anomaly and work-around reports. The following listing addresses three known anomalies when using dBASE IV. Use of these techniques will aid you in avoiding anomalies that have been reported to our Software Support Center. This report will be supplemented as new information is received. There is also one Usage Tip that may be used in order to avoid further problems or misunderstandings when using the dBASE IV product. ******************************************************************* ANOMALIES Installing dBASE IV Multi-user on Novell 2.1x Users may experience problems while installing the dBASE IV product on Local Area Networks (LANs) using Novell's Advanced Netware 286 version 2.1x software in conjunction with some PC clones. The following procedure will help you in avoiding problems during the installation process. 1) If you have not already gone through the process of identification of the dBASE IV product by filling in the User name, Company Name, and Serial number information (referred to as ID), go to step #5. 2) If you have completed the identification process of the dBASE IV product and the Multi-user install has failed, go to step #3. 3) Uninstall dBASE IV. That simply means to either go through the DBSETUP program and choose the option UNINSTALL, or make sure that all the dBASE IV system files are deleted from the dBASE IV directory and the directory DBNETCTL.300 has been removed. Certain files in the dBASE IV directory are marked as Read-only. In order to delete these files, use the DOS ATTRIB command to change their attribute status to Read-write and then delete the files. This can be accomplished by: CD C:\ where it is assumed that C: is the drive into which the files were installed. ATTRIB -R *.* DEL dbase*.* 4) Call the Ashton-Tate Software Support Center at (213)329-0086 and ask for a replacement diskette. You will be sent either a System Disk #1 (5.25" disk) or Installation Disk (3.5" disk). Upon receiving the replacement diskette, continue your installation with step #5. 5) The System disk should be IDed with the network shell down or unloaded. This means that the user should perform the identification process while at a stand-alone PC or a LAN workstation that has not yet loaded its network shell. Some workstations load the shell from the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, and others invoke it through a Batch file. Regardless, the workstation can be booted with a DOS floppy to insure that the network shell is not loaded. 6) To ID the dBASE IV product, place the Installation disk in the A: drive and change to the A: drive by typing A: . 7) At the A> prompt, type INSTALL 8) Follow the on-screen instructions to fill in the User name, Company name, and Serial number. After the user identification has been entered, press Ctrl-End to save the changes. 9) At the next screen a prompt displays "There are three phases to the installation ...", choose "Exit". Follow the prompts and when asked "You may exit to DOS or transfer to DBSETUP", choose "Exit to DOS". 10) Reboot the workstation. Load the network shell and login as the supervisor. 11) Use the Novell MAP SEARCH command to make the dBASE IV directory accessible as a search drive. Then use the MAP command to assign the dBASE IV directory a logical drive letter. (For further information refer to dBASE IV Network Installation guide.) 12) Install the Single-user version of dBASE IV to the desired network drive. This is done by selecting Install:Modify Hardware Setup:Multi user installation and choosing the default option of No in the DBSETUP program. Continue with the install process until you have been prompted that the installation has completed successfully. 13) After completing the installation, delete the file DBASE.EXE from the dBASE IV directory. 14) From the A> prompt run the INSTALLH program. Running this program creates the file DBASE.COM and the DBNETCTL.300 sub-directory. This can be accomplished by inserting System Disk #1 (5.25" disk) or the Installation Disk (3.5" disk) in the A: drive. At the A> prompt type INSTALLH . 15) Follow the on-screen instructions, giving the Source and the Destination drive letters when prompted. (Usually the Source Drive is A: and destination is the MAPped network drive where dBASE IV needs to be installed.) 16) Issue the Novell FLAG command to mark all dbase*.* files as Shareable Read-only (SRO). This is the DOS equivalent of ATTRIB +R dbase*.* command. 17) After these procedures, dBASE IV will be fully installed and will run properly. NOTE: When installing the Single-user version of dBASE IV, the file CONFIG.DB is created. Due to the fact that each workstation may have unique hardware settings, this file might need further modification. For more information, please refer to "dBASE IV Installation", page 2-13 of Network Installation. ================================================================= Changing colors through DBSETUP is not saved Defining colors via DBSETUP will reflect the new foreground and background color selections on screen, but fails to store the new settings to CONFIG.DB. WORKAROUND: There are 2 possible workarounds for the above problem: 1) MODIFY COMMAND CONFIG.DB at the dot prompt and define color with a COLOR OF ... = statement. Appropriate color are discussed in the "Commands" section, page 3-18 of Language Reference. 2) Delete the COLOR OF ... commands from the CONFIG.DB file. It is now possible to run DBSETUP and have the new settings saved to the CONFIG.DB file. ===================================================================== DBSETUP may create an invalid PATH statement for the AUTOEXEC.BAT file When installing dBASE IV through DBSETUP, one of the options at the end of the install routine allows you to create or modify the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. If there is no PATH in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, DBSETUP adds the PATH statement "PATH=;C:\". Since the PATH statement starts with a semicolon, typing "dBASE" from any directory other than the dBASE directory will return the error message "Bad command or filename". Furthermore, if there was a PATH already in AUTOEXEC.BAT file, the DBSETUP program does not check the length of the PATH statement. The addition of the dBASE IV PATH to an already lengthy PATH statement, results in a PATH that may exceed DOS's limitation. If so, upon start-up DOS will return the error message "Out of environment space" and/or typing "dBASE" from any directory other than the dBASE directory will return the error message "Bad command or filename". WORKAROUND: As a general rule, type the contents of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file and check the validity of the PATH statement. The PATH statement should start with a valid directory name. Multiple paths must be separated by a semicolon. ===================================================================== USAGE-TIP Environment Expansion and the SHELL Command The SHELL command is one of several configuration commands. SHELL's basic purpose is to allow users to define the location and name of an alternative command processor, which is ordinarily COMMAND.COM. SHELL's command syntax is: SHELL = d:path\Filename.EXT d:path /P/E:nnnn in which d:path is the drive name and full path name to the command processor, and Filename.EXT is the file name of the command processor. The SHELL command is often used for implementation of customized command processors. In an environment with memory at a premium, where resident software (possibly a network shell) is loaded, an environmental variable may be required for an application to be utilized. Given the default environment size of 127 bytes, it often becomes necessary to expand the size of the system environment. This is accomplished using the SHELL command's /E option. The nnnn values for the /E option in MS/PC-DOS version 3.1 requires values between 11 and 63 bytes, where an increment of nnnn equals 16 bytes (16*16=256). In MS/PC-DOS version 3.2 and 3.3, required values range between 160 and 32768 bytes. To increase the system environment's size, modify the CONFIG.SYS found in the root directory and add the following command: SHELL = C:\COMMAND.COM C:\ /P/E:256 The /E will increase the system environment size to 256 bytes. The SHELL /P option has a two fold effect. First, it installs the command processor in the system's memory, and remains active until the computer is rebooted or shut off. Second, it causes COMMAND.COM to execute AUTOEXEC.BAT during system initialization. Without /P, the environment size will be increased but will not execute the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. When using MS/PC-DOS version 3.1 the appropriate value of the /E parameter should be 16. If the value of /E is greater than 63 it will result in the error message "Out of Environment Space". So again, it is extremely important that you adhere to the range values listed for the different DOS versions. It should be noted that the /E and /P options were undocumented features in MS and PC-DOS versions 3.1, but are documented in PC-DOS versions 3.2 and 3.3. ======================================================================