----------------------------------------------------------------- STACKER NOTE STACKER NOTE MAKING A STACKER-AWARE WINDOWS 95 STARTUP DISK (Applies to Stacker 4.0 for Windows & DOS with Windows 95 Preview Program) STAC FAX 5301 (04-14-1995) ----------------------------------------------------------------- WINDOWS 95 & STACKER 4.0 Stacker 4.0 for Windows & DOS runs on Microsoft Windows versions 3.0 and 3.1 and most versions of DOS (see system requirements in documentation). Microsoft is developing a new operating system called Windows 95 and is offering a beta version of that operating system called Windows Preview Program to the general public. Because Windows Preview Program is a beta operating system and subject to change, Stac Electronics makes no warranties or claims as to the compatibility of Stacker 4.0 for Windows & DOS, or earlier versions of Stacker, with Windows Preview Program. The procedures in this document are provided for your information only. And, as always, when making any system changes, remember to make a backup of your data. BACKGROUND Windows 95 offers to make a Startup Disk during installation. It’s a good idea to make the disk so that you can do repairs to your drive, or run other utilities that don’t work when the Windows Graphical User Interface (GUI) is running. But the disk won’t mount your Stacker drive. So you must make a disk that’s Stacker-aware if you wish to use it to perform repairs or other operations on the Stacker drive. Also, the Startup disk does not use Windows 95's memory managers. It only makes use of memory in the way the older versions of DOS did. Some of the utilities you may wish to run may need more memory than the default Startup disk provides. An example of this is Stacker's Optimizer, SDEFRAG. If you run it when booted from a Stacker-aware Startup disk, you may get an Error 101, Insufficient Memory. This document will show some basic steps to make more memory available. SOLUTION - Make a Stacker-aware Startup disk. - Configure the Startup disk for additional memory. Make a Stacker-aware Startup disk To create a Startup disk while in Windows 95: 1. Locate Control panel and double click on it. 2. Once in the Control panel locate, select and double click on the ADD/REMOVE PROGRAM Icon 3. There will be three selections; INSTALL/UNINSTALL, WINDOWS SETUP and STARTUP DISK. Select STARTUP DISK 4. Place a HIGH DENSITY floppy into the A: Drive 5. Click on the button labeled Create Disk When finished you will find the following files on the disk DRVSPACE.BIN 70,279 COMMAND.COM 92,156 FORMAT.COM 40,135 SYS.COM 13,207 FDISK.EXE 58,888 ATTRIB.EXE 15,252 EDIT.COM 69,838 REGEDIT.EXE 119,296 SCANDISK.EXE 130,523 SCANDISK.INI 7,270 10 file(s) 616,844 bytes 6. Also copy the following files to the disk so that you can perform some memory management later: HIMEM.SYS, EMM386.EXE and MEM.EXE. Copy SETVER.EXE also. The easiest way to copy these files is to open a Command session and issue several copy commands. This is because HIMEM.SYS does not show in the Explorer unless you modify the options to allow showing SYSTEM files. The COPY commands are as follows: COPY C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS A: COPY C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE A: COPY C:\WINDOWS\SETVER.EXE A: COPY C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MEM.EXE A: Configure the Startup disk for additional memory Now you are ready to create a CONFIG.SYS file on the Startup disk with some memory management features. 1. Choose NOTEPAD from START/PROGRAMS/ACCESSORIES and type this: DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS DEVICE=EMM386.EXE NOEMS DOS=HIGH,UMB DEVICEHIGH=SETVER.EXE Files=10 Buffers=10 FCBS=1,0 Stacks=0,0 2. Choose to Save As "A:\CONFIG.SYS" and do a proper Windows 95 shutdown. Leave the Startup disk in drive A, and use CTRL- ALT-DEL to restart the system. 3. After you get to the A: prompt, go to drive C and change to the STACKER directory. Type the word CONFIG and press enter. The CONFIG program will offer to update both the STACKER.INI and the A:\CONFIG.SYS files. Allow it to make the changes. 4. Change back to drive A. Type EDIT A:\CONFIG.SYS . The CONFIG.SYS on the Startup disk will now look like this: DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS DEVICE=EMM386.EXE NOEMS DOS=HIGH,UMB DEVICEHIGH=SETVER.EXE Files=10 Buffers=10 FCBS=1,0 Stacks=0,0 DEVICE=C:\STACKER\STACKER.COM DEVICE=C:\STACKER\SSWAP.COM 5. Change the line DEVICE=C:\STACKER\STACKER.COM to read DEVICEHIGH=C:\STACKER\STACKER.COM and save the file. To save the file once you have made the changes press the ALT key then the F(ile) key and then X for eXit, which will prompt you to save the file. To do so press the Y key. 6. Restart the computer with the Startup disk in drive A. You will see the Stacker device as you startup. If there is an error message, go to the next step. Otherwise, at the A: prompt type MEM to see your free memory. You should expect to see 610K or larger as the largest executable program size. 7. On larger drives you may get an error message that Stacker could not be loaded high, and the installation is aborted. If so, start your system to the hard drive as usual. Open an editor such as Notepad. Insert the Startup disk in drive A and open the file A:\CONFIG.SYS. Remove the "HIGH" from the Stacker line. It should now read DEVICE=C:\STACKER\STACKER.COM Save the file. The next time you start your system with the Startup disk, it will mount your Stacker drive. But Stacker will be loaded in "conventional" memory, and some programs may not run. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1995 Stac Electronics