PC BENCH (TM) VERSION 8.0 README.TXT ==================================== This is the README.TXT file for PC Bench version 8.0. You can view this file from the the DOS command line using the EDIT command. This file contains the PC Bench License Agreement, installation instructions, and important notes about PC Bench version 8.0. Before you run PC Bench, you must first read and agree to the license agreement. LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR ZIFF-DAVIS' PC BENCH (TM) VERSION 8.0 ----------------------------------------------------------- READ THIS AGREEMENT CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THE SOFTWARE EMBODIED IN THE PC BENCH (TM) 8.0 DISKETTE (OR, IF DOWNLOADED, IN THE DOWNLOADED FILE(S)). Embodied in the PC Bench 8.0 diskette ("diskette") (or, if downloaded, in the downloaded file(s)) is the PC Bench 8.0 computer program and related documentation (the "Software"). Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, L.P., having a place of business at One Park Avenue, New York, New York 10016 ("Ziff") is the licensor under this Agreement and you are the licensee. By using the Software, in whole or in part, you agree to be bound by the terms of this Agreement. If you do not agree to the terms of this Agreement, promptly return the Software (or, if downloaded, delete the Software) to the Ziff-Davis Benchmark Operation at One Copley Parkway, Suite 510, Morrisville, North Carolina 27560. Title to the Software and all copyrights, trade secrets and other proprietary rights therein are owned by Ziff. All rights therein, except those expressly granted to you in this Agreement, are reserved by Ziff. 1. Limited License This Agreement grants you only limited rights to use the Software. Ziff grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Software on a single dedicated computer or on a file server networked with multiple PC computers for the sole purpose of conducting benchmark tests to measure the performance of computer hardware and operating system configurations. You have the right to make a single copy of the Software for archival purposes and the right to transfer a copy of the Software across a network only to the PC computers attached to the network. Ziff hereby grants you the right to publish benchmark test results obtained by you from your use of the Software provided that with the publication of each such result you: A. Identify Ziff-Davis, the name and version number of the benchmark Software used (i.e., Ziff-Davis' PC Bench (TM) Ver. 8.0); B. Identify the exact name, processor speed and type, amount of RAM, amount of secondary RAM cache, if any, hard disk size, type of hard disk controller, and size of hardware hard disk cache, if any, of the PC used for the test (e.g., WXY Corp. Model 466 with 66 MHz Intel (R) 486DX2 66 CPU, 8 MB of RAM, 64 KB RAM cache, 200 MB hard disk, IDE controller, and no hardware disk cache); C. Identify the exact video adapter name and refresh rate that produced the result (e.g., XYZ Corp. XYZ Video adapter with a refresh rate of 72 Hz); D. Identify the operating system version (e.g., MS DOS (R) 5.0), size and type of software disk cache, if any (e.g., SMARTDRV 2MB cache), video resolution and color depth (e.g., 800 by 600 pixels with 256 colors), and any other special conditions used to achieve the result (e.g., disk compression utility ABC version 1.0 enabled); E. State that all products used in the test were shipping versions available to the general public; F. State that the test was performed without independent verification by Ziff; and G. Follow proper trademark usage and acknowledge Ziff's trademark rights (e.g., "[ ] achieved a score of X DOSMark (TM) units on the PC Bench (TM) 8.0 test. PC Bench and DOSMark are trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, L.P."). This Agreement and your rights hereunder shall automatically terminate if you fail to comply with any provision of this Agreement. Upon such termination, you agree to cease all use of the Software, to delete the Software, and to destroy all copies of the diskette and other materials contained in this package in your possession or under your control, or, if downloaded, to destroy any and all copies of the Software in your possession or under your control. 2. Additional Restrictions A. You shall not (and shall not permit other persons or entities to) rent, lease, sell, sublicense, assign, or otherwise transfer the Software or this Agreement. Any attempt to do so shall be void and of no effect. B. You shall not (and shall not permit other persons or entities to) reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, merge, modify, include in other software or translate the Software, or use the Software for any commercial purposes, except for the publication of test results, as provided above. C. You shall not (and shall not permit other persons or entities to) remove or obscure Ziff's copyright, trademark or other proprietary notices or legends from any of the materials contained in this package or downloaded. 3. Limited Warranty and Limited Liability THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE RESULTS AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE IS ASSUMED BY YOU, AND ZIFF ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR APPLICATION OF OR ERRORS OR OMISSIONS IN THE SOFTWARE. IN NO EVENT SHALL ZIFF BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ZIFF HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE LIKELIHOOD OF SUCH DAMAGES OCCURRING. ZIFF SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS, DAMAGES OR COSTS, ARISING OUT OF, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, LOST PROFITS OR REVENUE, LOSS OF USE OF THE SOFTWARE, LOSS OF DATA OR EQUIPMENT, THE COSTS OF RECOVERING SOFTWARE, DATA OR EQUIPMENT, THE COST OF SUBSTITUTE SOFTWARE OR DATA, CLAIMS BY THIRD PARTIES, OR OTHER SIMILAR COSTS. THE ONLY WARRANTY MADE BY ZIFF IS THAT THE ORIGINAL PHYSICAL MEDIA IN WHICH THE SOFTWARE IS EMBODIED AND WHICH IS DISTRIBUTED BY ZIFF SHALL BE FREE OF DEFECTS IN MATERIALS AND WORKMANSHIP. ZIFF'S ENTIRE LIABILITY AND THE USER'S EXCLUSIVE REMEDY SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE REPLACEMENT OF THE ORIGINAL PHYSICAL MEDIA IF DEFECTIVE. THE WARRANTIES AND REMEDIES SET FORTH HEREIN ARE EXCLUSIVE AND IN LIEU OF ALL OTHERS, ORAL OR WRITTEN, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. NO ZIFF AGENT OR EMPLOYEE, OR THIRD PARTY, IS AUTHORIZED TO MAKE ANY MODIFICATION OR ADDITION TO THIS WARRANTY. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES; SO THE ABOVE LIMITATIONS OR EXCLUSIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. 4. U.S. Government Restricted Rights The Software is licensed subject to RESTRICTED RIGHTS. Use, duplication or disclosure by the Government or any person or entity acting on its behalf is subject to restrictions as set forth in subdivision (c)(1)(ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software Clause at DFARS (48 CFR 252.227 7013) for DoD contracts, in paragraphs (c)(1) and (2) of the Commercial Computer Software-Restricted Rights clause in the FAR (48 CFR 52.227 19) for civilian agencies, on in other comparable agency clauses. The contractor/manufacturer is the Ziff-Davis Benchmark Operation, One Copley Parkway, Suite 510, Morrisville, North Carolina 27560. 5. General Provisions Nothing in this Agreement constitutes a waiver of Ziff's rights under U.S copyright laws or any other Federal, state, local or foreign law. You are responsible for installation, management, and operation of the Software. This Agreement shall be construed, interpreted and governed under New York law. If any provision of this Agreement shall be held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be illegal, invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect. INSTALLING PC BENCH (TM) VERSION 8.0 ------------------------------------ PC Bench comes as a self-extracting file. To install PC Bench: 1. Create a directory called PCBENCH on your PC's disk. NOTE: You do not have to create a separate directory for PC Bench called \PCBENCH, but the Ziff-Davis Benchmark Operation (ZDBOp) recommends you do so. 2. Change directories (CD) to the directory you just created. 3. Put the PC Bench diskette in your PC's floppy drive and execute the following command. PCBENCH.EXE For example, if your PC's floppy drive is the A drive, you would type: A:\PCBENCH.EXE (If you downloaded PC Bench from ZiffNet, change directories to the directory where you stored the PCBENCH.EXE file and then execute the file.) PC Bench installs its files in the current directory. 4. Type the following command from the directory where you installed PC Bench to start PC Bench's database with a set of sample comparison results: CLEARDB NOTE: You do not have to execute the CLEARDB command to run PC Bench. However, if you do not execute this command, the PC Bench database will not contain any sample comparison results when you start PC Bench. Whether the database contains sample results will not affect how PC Bench runs, but ZDBOp recommends you execute this command. IMPORTANT PC BENCH NOTES ------------------------ The following list provides information you need to know BEFORE you run PC Bench. Read these notes before running PC Bench. 1. You must read and agree to the license information in the front of this file before running PC Bench. The same licensing information appears on your PC's screen the first time you run PC Bench after you install it and in the PC Bench manual and Help files. If you do not agree to the licensing information, delete all copies of PC Bench. If ZDBOp sent you the PC Bench diskette, return it and all accompanying materials (including any documentation) to ZDBOp at the following address: Ziff-Davis Benchmark Operation One Copley Parkway, Suite 510 Morrisville, NC 27560 For more information on licensing PC Bench, see Chapter 2 in the manual "Understanding and Using PC Bench (TM) 8.0" or the License option in the Help drop-down menu from the PC Bench program screen. 2. PC Bench version 8.0 is the most recent release of this product. This release differs from previous releases in many important ways. As a result, you can meaningfully compare PC Bench 8.0 results only with other PC Bench version 8.0 results. Do not attempt to compare version 8.0 results with results from earlier versions of PC Bench. Also, the database format for PC Bench 8.0 is not compatible with the database formats of earlier versions of PC Bench. 3. PC Bench runs DOS-based tests. Its results are not meant to reflect your PC's performance when running Windows-based applications. 4. ZDBOp tested PC Bench 8.0 with the EMM386 and HIMEM.SYS memory managers that ship with DOS. While PC Bench may run if you have another memory manager loaded on your PC, ZDBOp does not recommend using PC Bench as a tool for testing or comparing the performance of memory managers. KNOWN PROBLEMS WITH PC BENCH 8.0 -------------------------------- The following is a list of known problems with PC Bench 8.0. 1. If you select a sub-menu from a main menu and then use a keyboard accelerator to select another main menu title, the two menus will appear on the screen at once. To avoid this, press the ESC key to close the current menu before selecting another menu with a keyboard accelerator. 2. PC Bench's function-button icons occasionally may not appear correctly. This problem does not affect the way PC Bench runs or the validity of its test results. 3. The scroll bars in PC Bench screens at time may not function correctly. This problem does not affect the way PC Bench runs or the validity of its test results. 4. At times, you may be unable to run all of PC Bench's tests due to insufficient memory. This event is possible even if you have more RAM free than the minimum amount PC Bench requires. This problem is possible because your PC's conventional memory can become fragmented from using PC Bench for some time or from using a memory-intensive PC Bench feature, such as viewing System Info. If you have this problem, you can work around it easily by exiting and then restarting PC Bench. 5. PC Bench's Print to File function occasionally may not work correctly and may either not put the requested results in the output file or cause PC Bench to crash. If this should happen, save the results to PC Bench's database and then try this function again. ON-LINE DOCUMENTATION --------------------- PC Bench comes with the following on-line documentation: README.TXT This is the file you are reading now. It tells you how to license PC Bench and gives you important information about PC Bench. Read this information BEFORE you run PC Bench. PC Bench also includes two versions of the PC Bench manual. They are: PCBENCH.DOC Microsoft (R) Word for Windows (TM) 2.0c version. This version of the manual is formatted and contains illustrations of sample PC Bench screens. PCBENCH.TXT ASCII text version; it does not contain any formatting commands. (This file contains special touch-up work to help you print it.) With these two versions, you should be able to print a copy of the PC Bench manual regardless of the type of software on your PC. Note, however, that the PCBENCH.TXT file is not as nicely formatted as the .DOC version and does not contain illustrations of sample PC Bench screens. In addition to these files, PC Bench includes an on-line Help system that contains most of the information in the PC Bench manual. To access the PC Bench Help topics, select Help from the main menu of the PC Bench program screen. TECHNICAL SUPPORT ----------------- If you have comments or questions about PC Bench, please contact ZDBOp. You can contact ZDBOp in several ways: * If you have a modem and communications software, you can reach ZDBOp via ZiffNet, the Ziff-Davis on-line service. One way to access ZiffNet is by using CompuServe (R). ZiffNet's ZDBOp forum (GO ZDBENCH) is a way for you to communicate your technical questions and comments to Ziff-Davis. (Access to CompuServe is available for a fee.) * You can fax questions and comments directly to PC Bench Technical Support at the ZDBOp fax number (919-380-2879). * You can mail questions and comments to ZDBOp at the following address: Ziff-Davis Benchmark Operation One Copley Parkway, Suite 510 Morrisville, NC 27560 Attn: PC Bench Technical Support TRADEMARKS ---------- DOSMark (TM) and PC Bench (TM) are trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, L.P. CompuServe (R) is a registered trademark of CompuServe, Inc. Intel (R) is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. Microsoft (R) and MS-DOS (R) are registered trademarks and Windows (TM) is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.