R E A D M E . T X T !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This version of EDOS V3.65L A BBS, where you can download updated files. See below. Fix for 4DOS crashes with oversize sessions. Setup runs from DOS and starts Windows. Several New Utilites: see "Features not documented", below. New support for setting the title in a Windowed Dos Session. A "ETITLE" command that accepts a string argument in double quotes. Also, by default a unique number is added to the title each time a DOS session is started. The KILL.BAT file should be run FROM the edos directory, if you already had EDOS installed. Also, the path's may not be correct for the 704k and 736k sessions(not likely). ALL files from the install, are put in the EDOS subdirectory, not the Windows directory, where possible. Oversize sessions are not supported in the SHAREWARE version. If you need more memory 64-96K in a DOS session this feature is only offered in the registered version. This new version has a loader that will load real mode device drivers, the kind you ordinarily load in config.sys, but instead can load at the command line in a single DOS session. Using these methods save precious space in the lower 640k. Or, if you need these drivers or TSR's only in Windows programs, put the TSR's in WinStart.BAT. For more details concerning the loading of device drivers see the EDEVLOD.TXT file.(This feature is only offered in the registered version). W4W 3.11, VFAT.386 is broken. If you have 32bit file access enable you may experience system integrity violations. EDOS WILL trigger this if EDOSExecWinAPP is turned on.(See the EDOS control panel, Advanced button). Doing this does not fix VFAT. Contact Microsoft for a permanent fix. Be sure to check out our Enhancement for EDOS. Letter Box is the code name for our product that goes beyond EDOS. A shareware version of it is on our BBS. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ We have a electronic bulletin board (BBS) where you can call to download updated files. The phone number is: 503-694-2220(8N1), 1200 up to 19.2K baud. It is normally working 24 hours a day. You can expect to be able to leave messages and expect to receive a timely response. It is normally logged on to about once a day. See the advanced.txt file for more advanced information, on IRQ's and other esoteric subjects. Tested but not thoroughly with Windows for Workgroups. You can load TSR's in a single DOS session. Like CDROM support programs(MSCDEX) or FAX support TSR's. If your system shows less than 640k of original base memory, like 639k, there are several possible causes. One possible, although unlikely one is a virus infection. Other reasons include special disk drivers, etc. If you suspect a virus, you should try running a virus checker to see if it detects anything out of the ordinary. See oversize.txt file. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NETWORKS: If you installed Windows using "SETUP /N", then edos may not install correctly. If you encounter any difficulty please let me know as soon as possible. Network installations are not generally a problem. But a few people have had difficulty. Don't be bashful, if you do, give me call or send E-Mail. Be sure to use the wstacks.exe program to change the stack for DOS sessions if using a NETWORK. (Stacksiz.exe can be used if DOS is running). If you are running NOVELL, and you get crashes that result in a black screen with no cursor, you may have the "Black screen of death". Obtain BSDUP1.EXE from our BBS or from Compuserve NOVLIB forum, lib #1. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Features not documented in documentation: There several new Icons in the DOS session group. "Control Panel", "Tech Support" and "UnInstall". Control panel is where you disable/enable EDOS and control it's startup configuration. Tech Support Utility leads you thru some of the more common problems, use it! UnInstall Utility will do most of the REMOVAL of EDOS automatically, you need do only a couple of things by hand. See the Hypertext Help, for more info about these features. The Disable and Verify Icons have been removed and placed in the Control Panel. EDOS no longer has a hidden DOS session. This saves about 150k of extended memory, when Windows is running. ETITLE command, sets a new title in the caption of the windowed DOS session. ETITLE "This is a new title", puts the quoted string in the Window caption. "UniqueTitle=1", This feature assigns a unique number to a DOS session. The feature is enabled/disabled by this switch and it goes in the SYSTEM.INI file. Change using the Control Panel. The View Menu item as a new item: Always On Top. Setting this feature forces Windows to keep the DOS session on top, even when not active. There is a new DIAGNOSTICS menu item. You can now check the stack usage, state of the display drivers and some special state information about DOS using this new menu item. ########################### Mistakes in documentation: WINPMT, see explanation at end of this file. p. 2, EDOSLIB.EXE should be EDOSLIB.DLL p. 16, the use of !DOSMEM!.COM should include /p or /x p. 21 Status /V now prints out the id of the Virtual Machine that owns the com ports. Status /y & /n turn on/off executing of Windows Apps from the DOS command line. P. 25. The "NOTE" about hidden DOS session is no longer valid. p. 33, EDOSLIB.EXE should be EDOSLIB.DLL p. 35, EDOSLIB.EXE, has been renamed to edoslib.DLL, and moved to the EDOS subdirectory. ALL references to EDOSLIB.EXE in the manual should be changed to read EDOSLIB.DLL. p. 36, Section at bottom of page, starts: "B:\EDOS", should read: "B:\" p. 36, EDOS.INI is installed in the windows\EDOS subdirectory. p. 38, EDOS.INI section, should read edos.ini IS INSTALLED. P. 41. EDOSTEMP.COM is no longer on the diskette. P. 43. EDOSTEMP.COM & ESOTEMP.PIF, section is no longer valid. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LAST SECOND CHANGES ! ! ! ! ! DR DOS-6 has a fix to their command.com that WILL work with EDOS. Contact EDOS tech support for further information. The file is dated about 8-4-92. ----------------------------------------- If you have ANY technical problems involving DOS/Windows intereactions, or desire a feature that involves this environment, then by all means give EDOS Tech Support a call. Users who make suggestions are listened to and occassionally receive exactly what they want. Sooner or later! The feature set in EDOS is NOT STATIC and is influenced heavily by user requests. Here follows a couple of topics that we are presently considering: 1. Better support for DOS communications programs. 2. Pop up help and status in full-screen sessions. __________________________________________ Note: There is a bug in Windows 3.1 in that 672 bytes of memory is not freed after you run a dos session. This problem is cumulative such that starting 5 dos sessions and closing them will result in 5*672 bytes not being freed. Eventually you could run out of free memory, We suggest that you not open and close more than about 500 dos sessions without closing Windows and restarting it. This bug is NOT in EDOS. We hope that you find this amusing! This bug is fixed in V3.01b of EDOS. If closing all DOS sessions will free the memory. There is a bug in VBRUN100.DLL, the vbrun200.dll is ok. VBRUN is a support library for Visual Basic. If you use the PRINT command in a DOS session, be carefull about exiting and killing the session before the print job is completed. The print job will terminate along with the session. This is NOT an EDOS problem. But it will be fixed. By the way, EDOSLIB.DLL is now compiled using a real 386 code generating compiler. It contains real 386 code instruction sequences. Makes it a little bit faster. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Known problems: Closing a DOS session that has an ALARM pending, will generate no warning message. The alarm will be discarded. PS/1 & PS/2 and other micro-channel machines often have a data space called the "EBIOS" (extended bios). If this is mapped at 9f00:0000 then you will not be able to use the 704k or 736k DOS session feature. This is being looked into. DOS 6.x supports moving this to the UMB's. Use MemMaker. In an oversize DOS session: If the screen lines are changed, say to 50 from 25 when a DOS application starts and reset back to 25 when it exits, sometimes the font does not get reset. The fix is to: "mode CO80". Also, sometimes "exit" won't exit the DOS session. Do it a second time or use Alt-F4. This is being worked on. The 50/25 line menu items DO NOT work, if the session is oversize. But the menu items are not grayed out. The graying will be fixed, if the support can not be implemented. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Windows Bugs. The Windows PIFEDIT.EXE program has a bug, which SHOULD be harmless, but may not be. With the Windows Debug Kernels installed, start Windows. Start the pif editor, start a DOS Windowed session, start a second copy of pifedit, change the mouse and keyboard focus by clicking on the DOS session. GetClientRect near offset 0:80 in the pif editor will fail with an invalid (NULL) window handle. This may not be the only bug or way in which to generate the error. Be careful. There is no known workaround. Windows has a bug which will crash windows and hang your machine. The bug can be shown by, create a pif file, using command.com as the command. Use "/P" as the optional argument. Run the pif file. Use the "MEM" command or any similar program that walks the memory arena blocks. Windows will crash. The culprit is the "/P" optional argument. So... Beware. Don't make this mistake when creating a PIF file. Windows sometimes resets the keyboard repeat rate, and then fails to reset it upon exit. If you have trouble with a too fast repeat rate when exiting Windows contact EDOS tech support. We are working on a fix. EDOS "ERROR #1050" or "ERROR Class TTY not found" indicate severe errors during the startup phase of Windows and EDOS. If you see these errors it means that some device driver or applications program is defective and causing problems during the startup phase. The fix is to isolate the offending application and contact the maker of the software. Problems of this type can be caused or made worse by a bug in Windows itself. Contact EDOS tech support for details if necessary. -------------------------------------------------- There are several new SYSTEM.INI switches intended for tracking down bugs in Windows. These switches are not documented in the manual or here. But are available if you need technical support. Our technical support is very good. I ought to know, I am the support. See instructions at end of this file. Changing most switch setting can be done from the Control Panel. But not these. The 50 and 25 line menu items do not change lines correctly with all VGA display adapters. In addition, they are dumb screen switchers similar to "MODE CON: lines=50". Because of this changing screen lines does not always result in a screen "that will make you burst with pride". This will be improved in a future verion, IF POSSIBLE. ###################################################### EDOS contains an interface for DOS programmers to call. There are 3 calls supported at the present time. 1. A version call. 2. A way to call the alarm feature, with custom message. 3. A way to execute a Windows application, from a DOS app. 4. A way to change priorities, background & exclusive. (some simple DDE support is being added.) For detailed information contact EDOS technical support. There is a test program on the floppy called testv86.asm and .com that demonstrates the alarm feature. Also tstwinex.asm and .com demonstrates how to execute a Windows application from a DOS app. The shareware version does not have this material, to save space. You can download this from our BBS 503-694-2220. -------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: share violations responded to with FAIL, will display the file name!! of the file that is the subject of the fail, VERY useful! Use Fail several times if necessary. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++WARNING ! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Windows contains a bug situation that can occur at random: 1. Attempting to switch a WINDOWED DOS session into 36/43/50/60 lines (also, graphics) can cause corruption of the system. The code that is at fault is in the Virtual Display Driver(VDD). 2. Not all VDD's are prone to this problem. 3. The problem seems to happen only if paging is on and paging is under way. (The pager is busy). All of these conditions must be true for the problem to occur. 4. It is VERY difficult to protect yourself from this. The suggested workaround is as follows: 1. Use: Initial video mode = HiGraphics + Retain Video, in the PIF for any session that you will switch to a higher screen line count. 2. Both PIF settings MUST BE set or the corruption can occur. This "fix" will also protect you from applications that switch themselves into 50 line mode. This problem is NOT AN EDOS problem. The corruption can and will occur regardless of how the session is switched into 50 line mode and regardless of whether EDOS is installed or not. EDOS will warn you if the PIF settings are not ok, before you attempt to use our menu items to make the switch. Other applications WILL NOT warn. The results of the corruption are not necessarily OBVIOUS! However, testing using the debug kernels supplied with the SDK/DDK generates the following errors: ERROR: Allocation failed, pager busy! ERROR: PageReallocate failed. Allocation failed for display plane 00. Symptoms can range from: none observable to complete crashes occurring quite sometime after the switch is made. ================================== Note: twin DOS sessions, with dir *.* in a batch file loop, result in screen dislocations WITH or WITHOUT edos. ####################################################### Mike Maurice 6-1-94 Phones ---------------------- For Tech Support and Information: 503-694-2221 Hours 10 am to 10 pm, Pacific Time. Hours 1 pm to 1 am, Eastern Time. E-Mail------------------------ Compuserve: 71171,47 Internet: 71171.47@COMPUSERVE.COM For ORDERS: 800-248-0809 (do not use the sales lines to ask for tech support). 503-694-2282 WINPMT !!!! In order to conform to the method used by Win 3.1, EDOS was modified. 1. The EDOSPrompt system.ini switch has been dropped. 2. EDOS users may now have the DOS prompt set to THEIR way, in Windows 3.1. The method is as follows: Use the DOS "SET" command to create an environment variable "WINPMT". Like this: SET WINPMT=$p$l This will result in a prompt that looks like: C:\WINDOWS< when you are in Windows in a DOS session. The SET command should be installed in autoexec.bat, do not install it in WINSTART.BAT! YOU may use any legal prompt string when setting WINPMT. The DOS prompt will use your WINPMT string when Windows is running in a DOS session and will return to the original PROMPT when Windows exits back to plain DOS. This trick will work in Win 3.1 with or without EDOS. It is necessary to have both a PROMPT string and a WINPMT string for this to work.