- Ms Dos Serial Port Configuration List
- Ms Dos Serial Port Configuration Key
- Ms Dos Serial Port Configuration Number
- Ms Dos Serial Port Configuration Chart
- Ms-dos Serial Port Configuration
In this chapter we will introduce how tousediagnosticprograms to prove thePCCOM device driver is active and your serialport is work normally.
7.1 TESTCOM Diagnostic Program
The TESTCOM program providesdiagnostic routinetotestyourserialportsunder MS/DOS operating system. It provides internal loopback test and external loop test.
To redirect output from a parallel port (PRN, LPT1, LPT2, or LPT3) to a serial port(COM1, COM2, COM3, etc). You must be a member of the Administrators group to redirect printing. To configure a parallel printer port (PRN, LPT1, LPT2, or LPT3): MODE LPTn:=COMm: To setup the parameters for a serial port. MODE COMm options. Please I have MS-DOS 6.22 that runs on a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz machine with 512MB of ram. I use this machine to run a legacy application. The legacy application uses serial port to communicate with an external hardware. The problem is that the connection is not stable sometimes it fails and so the program fails to communicate and terminate. A serial port typically can only be monitored by one device at a time under the constraints of most operating systems, but a serial port redirector can create two virtual ports, for two separate applications to monitor the same data, for instance, a GPS device outputting location data.
Totest your serial port underMS/DOS, please type
A>TESTCOM
thenscreen will display as follows:
wait a moment, the screen will display as follows:
1. SETUP RS232
You may specify communication parameters suchas baud rate, data bits .. etc.Since thesecommunicationparameters aresetup when computer system is boot. However, if you wantreset communication parameters,please selectsetupRS232 functiontosetupnew communication parameters. We provideseveral preconfiguratedfileofourmulti-serial adapters,whichare named*.CFG,youmay rename one of these files to TESTCOM.CFG.
2. INTERNAL LOOP TEST
Theinternallooptestprovidesa loopbackfeature for diagnostictestingofthe8250/16450/16550chip.Youmaytype charactersfrom keyboard, then thereceived characterisdisplay onthescreen.When somethingerror such as time out, frame error .. etc., the reversedcharacter will display on the screen to indicate communication fail. We note that some 16450 chip will notemerge aninterruptwhenloopbackfeatureis selected.
3. EXTERNAL LOOP TEST
When you select external loop test, yourtypingcharacterswillbesentfromone serialport to another serialport.Before you select external loop test, please connect pin2 of send port to pin 3 of receiver port andpin 3 of send port to pin 2 ofreceiver port.Since the serial communication is full duplex,youcan loopback send andreceived port in one port.
a. Connects two rs232 ports
pin 2TxDRxDpin 3
pin 3RxDTxDpin 2
b. Loopback
Ms Dos Serial Port Configuration List
pin 2TxD
pin 3RxD
4. AUTO TEST Radio 2 0 1.
Whenyou select auto test,the TESTCOM willtestyour serialportautomatically. Bothinternalloop test andexternalloop test are used to check the selected port. The sendingcharacter are readfromREADME.DOC file.
5. SAVE CONFIGURATION
Omnigraffle pro 7 8 2 download free. Savecommunicationparameters todisk file.When TESTCOM is loaded,it willload thepreconfigurationfromdiskfile.The configuration file name is TESTCOM.CFG.
You can use <RETURN> key to letTESTCOM acceptsyour selection during youexecution theTESTCOM program,and press <ESC> key to return the last menu.
Table of Contents
0) Preface
I have noticed that many users have little or hardly any knowledgeof the basic configuration topics. In the last years I have been askedvery often to have a look at someone's 'autoexec', becausesomething was not working as expected. Perhaps you have had (or stillhave) those problems. If you think you're an config.sys expert I wouldsuggest you still read this document, as it contains perhaps sometricks and features you do not know yet.
1) History
In the good old days there was MS-DOS (sometimes people usedPC-DOS, the clone from IBM for their pc-series. Later on DR-DOS wasused for some days mainly because it was some $ cheaper..). When IBMdesigned their first PCs they only had the MDA textmodecapability. The MS-DOS that was delivered had (and still has)relatively good support for textmode (have a look at INT10h). But someyears later everybody was able to purchase graphic adapters that coulddisplay bitmapped graphics. The PC design was not really prepared forthis and most software still used textmode. But with the introductionof Microsoft Windows things changed. Microsoft presented a standardfor graphic user interfaces, so nearly everybody could use the newlook. And hardware manufactores supplied drivers for their products,and soon the complete PC world only wanted Windows. (I herewith omitthe fact that Win1 and Win2 were no real successes. The hurry startedin 1990, when Windows 3.0 was introduced).
But there was still lots of software to run on MS-DOS and peoplewanted to use those old software packages. So Microsoft did notprogram Windows as a standalone operating system (which they couldhave done, if they wanted), but rather as a graphical add-on forMS-DOS. Again some years later some companies shouted MS-DOS is'out', mostly to sell their own operating systems (mainlyIBM with OS/2). So Microsoft had to react. In fact they always tellyou that their product Windows 95 is a complete operating system nolonger relying on MS-DOS. But don't trust them. It is all the old way!Every time you start up your Windows 95 machine, MS-DOS (in this casev7.0) is started. Command.com then starts a file called win.com inyour windows directory. If you don't trust me, then rename yourwin.com to some other name and reboot your machine. You will notice,that you have the classic command.com interface. If you quit windowsagain you will get a nice picture telling you that you can turn offyour computer. But the whole truth is, that you are now back toMS-DOS, but your graphic card is still switched to gfx mode. If youtype mode co80 and press enter you will get the classic commandprompt.
Summary: Windows95 behaves just as Windows 3.x did and we canget some advantages of this fact.
But there was still lots of software to run on MS-DOS and peoplewanted to use those old software packages. So Microsoft did notprogram Windows as a standalone operating system (which they couldhave done, if they wanted), but rather as a graphical add-on forMS-DOS. Again some years later some companies shouted MS-DOS is'out', mostly to sell their own operating systems (mainlyIBM with OS/2). So Microsoft had to react. In fact they always tellyou that their product Windows 95 is a complete operating system nolonger relying on MS-DOS. But don't trust them. It is all the old way!Every time you start up your Windows 95 machine, MS-DOS (in this casev7.0) is started. Command.com then starts a file called win.com inyour windows directory. If you don't trust me, then rename yourwin.com to some other name and reboot your machine. You will notice,that you have the classic command.com interface. If you quit windowsagain you will get a nice picture telling you that you can turn offyour computer. But the whole truth is, that you are now back toMS-DOS, but your graphic card is still switched to gfx mode. If youtype mode co80 and press enter you will get the classic commandprompt.
Summary: Windows95 behaves just as Windows 3.x did and we canget some advantages of this fact.
2) MSDOS.SYS
In fact Microsoft has prepared their software for the things wewant to do. So at first you should rename your renamed win.com to theoriginal name again. Then you have to go to the command prompt,either with a shell in Windows or from boot disk, or which ever wayyou prefer. Now we want to have a look at the file
no we can have a look at this file in our favourite text editor:
Mine look like this:
MSDOS.SYS
. Before Win95 this file was needed to boot upthe machine together with IO.SYS and every computer has this file onits hard disk in the root directory. With windows 95 and dos 7.0things changed. MSDOS.SYS is not longer a binary file. But of courseit is hidden, system and protected, so at first we have to set someproper attributes:attrib -r -s -h msdos.sys
no we can have a look at this file in our favourite text editor:
edit msdos.sys
Mine look like this:
and there are a couple of ; lines more to follow..
As in all Microsoft configuration files this file is seperated in sections. Eachsection starts with a key word in brackets [].The PATHS section should be no mystery to you and you normally don't need to changeit. But very interesting is the next section, the OPTIONS section.Here we find 4 entries. If some of the entries above are not listed in your msdos.systhat is somewhat normal. But you can just insert them.
As in all Microsoft configuration files this file is seperated in sections. Eachsection starts with a key word in brackets [].The PATHS section should be no mystery to you and you normally don't need to changeit. But very interesting is the next section, the OPTIONS section.Here we find 4 entries. If some of the entries above are not listed in your msdos.systhat is somewhat normal. But you can just insert them.
- BootMulti
- this option enables multiple boot configurations. Even if you only wanton configuration it does not hurt to enable this option.
- BootGui
- now this is a real highlight. Window's Setup enables this option andtherefore the command processor load windows every time the machine starts.By disabling this option you will get the command line at startup and can startwindows easily by typing 'win'. So disable this.
- Logo
- Many people find it totally cool to have big background and startup pictures.I personally prefer the classic style of a black screen. This option enables thestartup picture, so I disabled it.
- Network
- If you want to use Network enable this.
If you've modified the file according to your needs save it. Thenexit your editor and make it protected again with:
attrib +r +h +s msdos.sys
3) CONFIG.SYS
Now we go a little bit deeper into the configuration. We will nowhandle our config.sys file. But before we edit it, we have to get someoverview of what our system think it needs. The mem programm fits ourneeds. type:
my output look like this. you will later notice (when you are anexpert) that the above command is the best utility when optimizingyour configuration. Here is my output (of course it is optimited formy needs already):
mem /c/p
my output look like this. you will later notice (when you are anexpert) that the above command is the best utility when optimizingyour configuration. Here is my output (of course it is optimited formy needs already):
hmm, seems I have a german version of windows installed. But onother language version things should look similar, so I guess youwon't have any difficulties. The above is not the complete output of
mem /c/p
, but everything we have to know now. We clearlysee that DOS manages two different memory blocks, the conventional andthe upper memory block. I think the best would now be to explain thoseterms now. again some history:The original PC in 1980 had a 8088/8086 which could handle 1MB ofmemory. But 1MB of RAM was very expensive, so the designers made ahardware design for the pc using the lower 640K for the operatingsystem and user loadable programs. The memory from A000-CFFF wasreserved for the graphic card. As the user could plug in additionalcards which could need some memory too, D000-EFFF was reserved forcard roms. Finally the BIOS of the computer needs some memoryadresses to image their ROMs too, which was located from F000-FFFF. Sothe whole addressable memory from 0000-FFFF was used in thepc-design.
But things turned out to develop in a different way. Today no carduses the memory from D000-EFFF. The VGA BIOS which could use C000-CFFFis often smaller. The same applies for the system BIOS which oftenonly needs 32K. And modern computers have more than 1MB of RAMinstalled so there is physical memory which can/should be used!
I would suggest that you take a look the the programmUMBINFO now. Although thisis a german programm to present a card, which was needed about 10 years ago ithas a very interesting feature which lets you explore you dos memory. SelectSpeicherbelegung and you can browse through your lower 1MB memory and explorethe installed programs and tables. Have a close look on the pointsSystem Bios and ROM Erweiterung (the one starting atC000) and write down their start/and adresses.
But things turned out to develop in a different way. Today no carduses the memory from D000-EFFF. The VGA BIOS which could use C000-CFFFis often smaller. The same applies for the system BIOS which oftenonly needs 32K. And modern computers have more than 1MB of RAMinstalled so there is physical memory which can/should be used!
I would suggest that you take a look the the programmUMBINFO now. Although thisis a german programm to present a card, which was needed about 10 years ago ithas a very interesting feature which lets you explore you dos memory. SelectSpeicherbelegung and you can browse through your lower 1MB memory and explorethe installed programs and tables. Have a close look on the pointsSystem Bios and ROM Erweiterung (the one starting atC000) and write down their start/and adresses.
But now back to our
mem /c/p
printout. All programslisted here are drivers and tsr programs currently loaded. Pleasewrite down their memory usage now. For example my cd-rom driverTEAC_CDI uses 8K of ram. If you notice that your HIMEM.SYS driveruses about 45K of memory you have installed a Win95b version, whichhas a bug in the IO.SYS file. There is a patch from Microsoft whichyou should definatively apply!Now we have to manipulate our config.sys so load it into your editor:
If you have never touched this file before and installed someprograms it is normally in a very bad order. But we will make itorderd and good now. If your config.sys file does not include lines Italk about you can just add them. The first line should definativlystart the
The second line should consist of
The line with the Country code is normally created by the setupprogram and prepares your keyboard for nation specificstandards. Leave this line as it is.
The next line is perhaps themost important line in your config.sys file. The second driver loadedshould be
The memory above 1MB can be configured in three different ways. If youdo not load himem.sys the memory is not configured at all and can onlybe accessed by protected mode programs. When loading himem.sys thememory is configured as XMS memory (eXtended MemorySystem). This is the prefered method ! But in the 80's therewas a second standard for additional memory called EMS(Expanded Memory System). emm386 can now simulateEMS within the XMS. Today some programs still want EMS memory (forexample Impulse Tracker or Wing Commander 1+2). But as this memorytechnique is far outdated you should look out for better programs.However if you have to use EMS you can modify your config.sysaccordingly. Unfortunately if you load emm386 without any switches itconfigures itself with a small amount of EMS (I think 2MB) and therest of the memory is left as XMS. But we (normally) do not want anyEMS memory at all, so we start it with the NOEMS switch.
If you want to use EMS simply type the number of Kilobytes as a valuein the line (my config uses 28000 KB). Due to a design bug in emm386you then also have to use the RAM switch to enable the use of the UMBfor programs.
The D switch defines the maximum number ofKB for a DMA transfer. Default value is 32, but some programs wantsome more DMA buffer. A value of 64 should be good.
Now thereally importand switches x and i. We want to use thememory between A000 and FFFF (UMB). But some of this memory isreserved, so we have to tell emm386 which part it can use. I hope youhave tried out the UMBINFO programm and got an overview over yoursystem! (although I think most system should work well with my values,there is no guarantee)
We know that memory between A000 and CFFFis reserved for video. And F000 - FFFF is reserved for SystemBIOS. The memory in between is normally not used by any cards youmight have installed (except perhaps some very old network cards). Sofail save values would be:
emm386 now knows that memory from a000-cfffand f000-ffff should not be used, while d000-efff is ready forprograms to be occupied.
But I know that on my system (and Ithink this applies for yours too) my video card only uses memory up toC7FF and my system BIOS starts at F800. So I can modify the lineto:
This will get another 64K of RAM !
HIMEM.SYS
driver. This driver is needed formemory management and most programs rely on its presence. But himem isa very critical program and wants to check your memory every time youboot up. Modern RAM chips do not break down, so there is no need tocheck every single bit when booting each time. You should apply the/testmem:off
switch. You will notice that himem now bootsin 0.5s!The second line should consist of
dos=high,umb
. high tells you system to load themain part of dos into the High Memory Area (HMA, a 64K segment above 1MB, which canbe used with a trick on i386). This will save you 64K of conventional memory.umb is a directive for emm386 (we'll cover it soon) to be able to load normaldos programs into the upper memory area (remember? the memory between C800-F7FF).lastdrive is not really needed, but does not hurt. normallythis is set to f. But if you have some hard disks, cd-rom, andperhaps other removable media drives installed f can lead to aproblem. Or if you want to install network drives. So set this toZ and be save.The line with the Country code is normally created by the setupprogram and prepares your keyboard for nation specificstandards. Leave this line as it is.
The next line is perhaps themost important line in your config.sys file. The second driver loadedshould be
EMM386
. This multi purpose programs handles twothings. It provides additional memory manangement routines needed bymany programs and it is able to load DOS programs and drivers into theUMB. Note that you can not load Himem or Emm386 'high' asthese two programs provide the option to load other programshigh. They can't load themselves high.The memory above 1MB can be configured in three different ways. If youdo not load himem.sys the memory is not configured at all and can onlybe accessed by protected mode programs. When loading himem.sys thememory is configured as XMS memory (eXtended MemorySystem). This is the prefered method ! But in the 80's therewas a second standard for additional memory called EMS(Expanded Memory System). emm386 can now simulateEMS within the XMS. Today some programs still want EMS memory (forexample Impulse Tracker or Wing Commander 1+2). But as this memorytechnique is far outdated you should look out for better programs.However if you have to use EMS you can modify your config.sysaccordingly. Unfortunately if you load emm386 without any switches itconfigures itself with a small amount of EMS (I think 2MB) and therest of the memory is left as XMS. But we (normally) do not want anyEMS memory at all, so we start it with the NOEMS switch.
If you want to use EMS simply type the number of Kilobytes as a valuein the line (my config uses 28000 KB). Due to a design bug in emm386you then also have to use the RAM switch to enable the use of the UMBfor programs.
The D switch defines the maximum number ofKB for a DMA transfer. Default value is 32, but some programs wantsome more DMA buffer. A value of 64 should be good.
Now thereally importand switches x and i. We want to use thememory between A000 and FFFF (UMB). But some of this memory isreserved, so we have to tell emm386 which part it can use. I hope youhave tried out the UMBINFO programm and got an overview over yoursystem! (although I think most system should work well with my values,there is no guarantee)
We know that memory between A000 and CFFFis reserved for video. And F000 - FFFF is reserved for SystemBIOS. The memory in between is normally not used by any cards youmight have installed (except perhaps some very old network cards). Sofail save values would be:
x=a000-cfff i=d000-efffx=f000-ffff
emm386 now knows that memory from a000-cfffand f000-ffff should not be used, while d000-efff is ready forprograms to be occupied.
But I know that on my system (and Ithink this applies for yours too) my video card only uses memory up toC7FF and my system BIOS starts at F800. So I can modify the lineto:
x=a000-c7ff i=c800-f7ff x=f800-ffff
This will get another 64K of RAM !
Notice that emm386 is normally installed by setup.exe with thehighscan switch. Documents claim, that highscan does the samething we did right know, but I never saw it working. highscan normallyuses very little free memory and I suggest you delete it from youremm386 line, now that you know how to do it by hand. And there aresome more 32K ready. Coders know that text mode starts at B800. Butthe graphics memory ends at AFFF. So what lies in B000-B7FF ??? It isthe textmode memory for monchrome graphics cards. If do not have oneinstalled you can use this memory too, so change to above to:
(you might have guessed already that I own a hercules card, so I could not usethis last line). Some graphic cards I have seen also use b000-b7ff, so this verylast optimization might not work for you. You have to try it out.
Now, sometimes we want to boot our machine with EMS memory. So we install a secondline in our config.sys file with a prepared emm386 line, so we can easily rem outthe correct driver. The EMS technique needs some memory for a so called page frame.This frame has to be located somewhere. Its size is 32K. So a fail save EMS line:
however the following should work also:
Or fit it to your needs. Remember that you put your frame addressmanually to the lowest possible location, so there is the highesamount of continueous memory left.
x=a000-afff i=b000-b7ff x=b800-c7ff i=c800-f7ff x=f800-ffff
(you might have guessed already that I own a hercules card, so I could not usethis last line). Some graphic cards I have seen also use b000-b7ff, so this verylast optimization might not work for you. You have to try it out.
Now, sometimes we want to boot our machine with EMS memory. So we install a secondline in our config.sys file with a prepared emm386 line, so we can easily rem outthe correct driver. The EMS technique needs some memory for a so called page frame.This frame has to be located somewhere. Its size is 32K. So a fail save EMS line:
[EMS in K] ram x=a000-cfff frame=d000 i=d800-efff x=f000-ffff
however the following should work also:
[EMS in K] ram x=a000-c7ff frame=c800 i=d000-f7ff x=f800-ffff
Or fit it to your needs. Remember that you put your frame addressmanually to the lowest possible location, so there is the highesamount of continueous memory left.
After you loaded the emm386 you can use the devicehigh andlh commands. In the config.sys we only need devicehigh. Youshould now load all necessary drivers sorted by memory usage. So thebiggest driver should be loaded first. You can see that my cd-romdriver needs about 8K, while eansi just wants 2K. So cdrom is firstfollowed by eansi.
The shell option load an alternative command processor (4dos inthis case). If you do not want 4dos, ignore this line now.
4) AUTOEXEC.BAT
Now it is time to look at the third part in the boot process theautoexec.bat. I have made a copy of mine again:
If you never have touched your autoexec.bat I assume it is in avery bad order. So we want to order it at first. Please take sometime order your file. It will help you in the future when modifyingthis file again. Often programs insert lines into you autoexec.batwhen they install themselves, although they do not need theinformation added at all! I normally check my config.sys andautoexec.bat every time I installed new software formodifications. Often these are not needed or the things are alreadyinstalled, but those stupid setup programs did not scan your filescorrectly. So some basic understanding of the options described inthis file is neccessary. But lets simply start with my autoexec.
At first you have to know that this file is a normal batch file. Soevery line behaves just as is you would have typed in on yourkeyboard.
- @echo off
- this line disables the command processor to disable the 'key' output.Programm output however is of course not disabled. This option is personal taste,but most people want this enabled.
- verify off
- ms-dos has an option to check for errors while saving files. But thosemethods are so badly programes that they are totally useless and only eat time.So disabling this option can speed up your disk system a bit.
- set compec
- normally this evironment variable is set by the system, but nooneforbids us to set it manually (and we have to set it when using 4dos). If you donot want to use 4DOS, leave this line out.
- set temp, set tmp
- set the tmp directory for your system. This option is validfor windows too. By default this is set to c:windowstemp, but my D: drive issome MBs/second faster than my C: drive, so I set this value to D. I suggest youmeasure the speed of your hard disks (if you have more than one) and set the tempdirectory to the fastest drive. Be sure to create a subdirectory for temp, asthe root directory of a drive can only hold 512 entries !
- set blaster..
- all other sets are system specific and you should leave them tothe values you find in your autoexec.
- path
- sets the search path for executables. modify it to your needs
- prompt
- the basic prompt (my prompt is a little bit more complex and uses theadvantages of 4dos, but i deleted it, because it is of no use here)
Ms Dos Serial Port Configuration Key
All the above mentioned topics have only modified the internalstate of the command processor. By now no program has been loaded orcard initialized etc. I suggest that you order your file in the waythat set, prompt, path etc. statements are executed at first. Then thedrivers and setup programs are loaded.
If you are using Windows95 you will have noticed that you can starta DOS shell from the desktop. Starting this dos shell is a little bitdifferent from booting your system. At first the command processor isloaded and afterwards the autoexec.bat is executed. config.sys is notloaded at all!
No here comes a problem. Because there are some drivers, setupprograms etc. that do not like to be loaded inside windows (or windowsdoes not like them to be loaded). For example I have installed twosound cards. A sound blaster 16 and a gravis ultrasound. Now the SBsetup programs can be run under windows, while the gravis softwaredoes not like to be started with windows in background. So we have tofind a way to determine is windows is started. We make this by askingfor the evironment variable WINDIR. If windows is loaded it is set tothe appropiate directoy, while it simply does not exist, if windows isnot loaded at all.
So if you look at my autoexec.bat you see that my keyboard driver isloaded when booting my pc, as well as starting a dos shell inwindows. The same applies for the initializition of my sound blastercard. But my gravis is only initialized at boot up, together with mymouse and my cdrom. When windows is running the block between the ifstatement and :weiter is simpy ignored.
No here comes a problem. Because there are some drivers, setupprograms etc. that do not like to be loaded inside windows (or windowsdoes not like them to be loaded). For example I have installed twosound cards. A sound blaster 16 and a gravis ultrasound. Now the SBsetup programs can be run under windows, while the gravis softwaredoes not like to be started with windows in background. So we have tofind a way to determine is windows is started. We make this by askingfor the evironment variable WINDIR. If windows is loaded it is set tothe appropiate directoy, while it simply does not exist, if windows isnot loaded at all.
So if you look at my autoexec.bat you see that my keyboard driver isloaded when booting my pc, as well as starting a dos shell inwindows. The same applies for the initializition of my sound blastercard. But my gravis is only initialized at boot up, together with mymouse and my cdrom. When windows is running the block between the ifstatement and :weiter is simpy ignored.
If you load a driver or a tsr program you should always try to loadthem into the UMB with the
lh
statement. In myconfiguration all drivers are loading 'high'. In fact youcan load every dos programm high, as long as it fits into the memoryleft there. If dos recognizes that the program would not fit into theumb area it is loaded to conventional memory automatically, so you cannot make any mistake when using this command.MS-DOS also provides the ability of multi-boot menues or multiconfigurations. This option will show a nice menu at startup and youcan choose between various configurations. I do NOT recommend the useof it.
Simply because I think that 99% of all users do not need multipleconfigurations if they set up their system properly. And those multiconfiguration are very hard to handle and keep up to date. It is ofteneasier to make a small modification to your config.sys of autoexec.batfor one boot if you need a special setup of something than installinga second boot tree and using it perhaps three times a year.
Simply because I think that 99% of all users do not need multipleconfigurations if they set up their system properly. And those multiconfiguration are very hard to handle and keep up to date. It is ofteneasier to make a small modification to your config.sys of autoexec.batfor one boot if you need a special setup of something than installinga second boot tree and using it perhaps three times a year.
Command.com is nice and working. But it is far from being cool. Iwould suggest everybody to install 4DOS. It completely replacescommand.com and adds dozens of new features to it. If you haveinstalled it once and used it for about 3 hours I bet you never wantto use old command.com anymore. Watch out for another tutorial on howto use 4DOS, which I will write in the near future.
6) Smartdrive
Everyone owns the smartdrive program. This program is nice, but itsuse can be risky. If you use windows mainly you will not need thisprogramm, since windows has its own built in file cache. If you haveloaded smartdrive and then start windows windows can not use thememory allocated by smartdrive, so the performance of windows will beinfirior than without smartdrive.
If you want to use DOS, smartdrive can be of use for you. But todayhard disks are so fast, that the speed advantadge of smartdrive ishardly noticable for normal work. Only when compiling large programsor when copying, deleting, compressing, moving many (small) filessmartdrive has it's use.
But be warned that smartdrive by default enables a write backtechnique. That means that files written to the hard disk will not bewritten immidiately, but rather when either the cache is full or whensmartdrive thinks it would be a good time to do so. But if yoursystem crashes, before smartdrive has flushed its buffer you will havedata losses. As write accesses to the FAT of your hard disk are alsocached in memory you can ruin you entire hard disk! (trust me, I hadthis once) Of course you can disable the write back strategie, butthen smartdrive is close to uselessnes. My suggestion is that you donot load smartdrive by default, but rather from command line if youwant to make many file operations (copy, delete etc). If you havecompleted your work reboot your machine after a pause of 15sec (togive smartdrive time to flush its buffer). After reboot smartdrive isnot longer active and you're on the save side again.
If you want to use DOS, smartdrive can be of use for you. But todayhard disks are so fast, that the speed advantadge of smartdrive ishardly noticable for normal work. Only when compiling large programsor when copying, deleting, compressing, moving many (small) filessmartdrive has it's use.
But be warned that smartdrive by default enables a write backtechnique. That means that files written to the hard disk will not bewritten immidiately, but rather when either the cache is full or whensmartdrive thinks it would be a good time to do so. But if yoursystem crashes, before smartdrive has flushed its buffer you will havedata losses. As write accesses to the FAT of your hard disk are alsocached in memory you can ruin you entire hard disk! (trust me, I hadthis once) Of course you can disable the write back strategie, butthen smartdrive is close to uselessnes. My suggestion is that you donot load smartdrive by default, but rather from command line if youwant to make many file operations (copy, delete etc). If you havecompleted your work reboot your machine after a pause of 15sec (togive smartdrive time to flush its buffer). After reboot smartdrive isnot longer active and you're on the save side again.
7) Ramdrive
this relict from times when people had very slow hard disks (or no hard disksat all) is totally outdated today and should not be used!
Ms Dos Serial Port Configuration Number
8) Windows 95
Windows has many ways of manipulating the system core. I onlysuggest one here, because too much damage can be done by twiddling inwin.ini, system.ini and the registry. If you want to make a newinstallation of windows95 go to your local newspaper dealer and buyone of those 'windows magazine' which titles every threemonth '100 new tricks for improving windows speed'. Thenapply all those patches and prepare your windows installation cdrom:-)
The problem is, that windows is painfully slow and that you can speedup it to a certain degree. But windows is so complex, that I do notrecommend those tunings. Either buy a faster pc or install a bettergraphical operating system (unix). But one thing: windows has alwaysa built in file cache. Normally windows wants to handle its size, butwe all know, that windows is not very clever in doing so. So we settwo boundaries for windows. Open system.ini in you editor andadd/modify the following three line:
The problem is, that windows is painfully slow and that you can speedup it to a certain degree. But windows is so complex, that I do notrecommend those tunings. Either buy a faster pc or install a bettergraphical operating system (unix). But one thing: windows has alwaysa built in file cache. Normally windows wants to handle its size, butwe all know, that windows is not very clever in doing so. So we settwo boundaries for windows. Open system.ini in you editor andadd/modify the following three line:
So windows knows that it should assign 4MB file cache maximum andhold 1MB cache whatever happens. Experience showed, that those twovalues provide the best performance. If you don't trust me you canmodify them, but you won't see any better difference.
9) Full Hard Disks
Everybody knows the date when their hard disk just has some few MBsleft (~5MB). Now we have two possibilites. Delete some programs orbuy a new hard disk. But is it really neccessary to delete entireprograms? No, but mostly you can delete lots of trash those programshave installed. Have you ever had a look how many *.txt *.bmp *.wav*.wri files windows installed in its directories? And we don't needany of them. So delete them.
The second step would be to browse through your entire hard disk andsearch for all readmes, file_id.diz, tmp, bak files and I am sure youwill find dozens of MB of crap that exists on your hard disk.Normally you should have some close looks on every now program youinstall. Mostly you get many readme files you never want to read. Sodelete them Keep your Hard Disk tidy !
The second step would be to browse through your entire hard disk andsearch for all readmes, file_id.diz, tmp, bak files and I am sure youwill find dozens of MB of crap that exists on your hard disk.Normally you should have some close looks on every now program youinstall. Mostly you get many readme files you never want to read. Sodelete them Keep your Hard Disk tidy !
10) Defrag, Scandisk
Ms Dos Serial Port Configuration Chart
Two very usefull programs. If your windows crashes daily (minecertainly does) you normally do not have to load scandisk manually,cause windows does the job for you every time you boot up again aftera crash. If you windows runs fine you should start scandisk from timeto time to check for errors. Although those disk errors have reduceddramatically (I remember times from MS-DOS 5.0) they still appear fromtime to time.
Defrag is a nice program too. This can relocate your files physicallyon your hard disk. The logical directory structure is not affected bythis program. This program can be run from time to time too. But youshould not expect any speed increase wonders. If you have deleted manyfiles or if you want to install a new big programm it can be usefullthe run this program (after deletion; before installation), as itbrings some order to your hard disk. Daily use of defrag is surelyoverkill.
Defrag is a nice program too. This can relocate your files physicallyon your hard disk. The logical directory structure is not affected bythis program. This program can be run from time to time too. But youshould not expect any speed increase wonders. If you have deleted manyfiles or if you want to install a new big programm it can be usefullthe run this program (after deletion; before installation), as itbrings some order to your hard disk. Daily use of defrag is surelyoverkill.
Ms-dos Serial Port Configuration
2004-06-17 © by doj