OS/2 Tips

We scan the Web, Usenet and the OS/2 mail lists looking for these gems. Have you run across an interesting bit of information about OS/2 recently? Please share it with all our readers. Send your tips to tips@os2voice.org. If you are interested in joining a particular OS/2 Mailing List, check out the VOICE Mailing List page for subscribing instructions for a large variety of existing Lists - http://www.os2voice.org/mailinglists.html.

Editor's note: these tips are from OS/2 users and in some cases can not be verified by myself. Please heed this as a warning that if you are not sure about something, don't do it.

November 19, 2000 - For people who want to use different codepages for win32 apps running under Odin, here is a tip from Mike Reichel on the Odin Users mail list:

You can change the odin.ini.
I have added following:

[CODEPAGES] Windows=1252 Display=1252

You can also use 1004. You don't need to switch the codepage within OS/2. I had 850,437 and the Winxx programs shows the german umlauts in ODIN without a problem.

PS: There is a difference between cp 1004 and cp 1252. In 1252 there a special characters for the Euro within.

PS: Java programs can also be forced to use this codepage:
'java.exe -Dfile.encoding="1252" '

BTW, Mike Reichel also added that you can make Odin identify itself as Windows 98 by setting

[WinVersion] WinVersion=Win98

November 22, 2000 - Who better to give a tip on the use of Drag Text ( http://www.e-vertise.com/dragtext ), then it's developer Rick Walsh. The following was found on comp.os.os2.apps:

Did you know that you can use the icon to _append_ text to the clipboard rather than simply replacing the existing text? Drag something to the icon, then before you drop, press and *release* the Insert key. The icon will remain in append mode until you next press Insert while dragging over it. I seldom mention this (or use it) because I haven't come up with a way to provide any visual feedback that would indicate what's happening. If you try it, I'd suggest doing a test paste to ensure you're in the mode you expect. Also, remember that the clipboard is limited to 64k, so don't get carried away. :-)

November 23, 2000 - Stefan Wolf on comp.os.os2.setup.misc offered this help in getting a DPT RAID controller car running under OS/2 Warp:

I have made exactly the same experience with a DPT 2554. To get it work you need the latest IBM I2O drivers and the latest firmware update (3013) for the DPT from http://www.adaptec.com/support/overview/dptraid_dl.html But there are still 2 limitations: You can NOT boot from the RAID and you can not swap to the RAID. This is what I figured out a few months ago.

November 25, 2000 - Are you trying to get a USB Zip drive running under OS/2? Here is a tip from Daniela Engert on the eComStation eGroup mail list:

I've repeated the following at various places in the past; thus another time:

BASEDEV=USBMSD.ADD /FIXED_DISK /FLOPPIES:0 /DEVICES:1

November 30, 2000 - Are you experiencing a TRAP 000d when when coping large files on a WSeB server to another server? Here is a possible answer from a post by Peter Fitzsimmons in comp.os.os2.bugs:

I had this problem too...tried all kinds of fixpaks...nothing worked.

Then "MAXTRANSMITS=1" in protocol.ini did the trick; it seems the NIC driver couldn't handle the default number of packets (which is set up for IBM's token ring driver) and NETBUEI can't deal with it properly.

November 30, 2000 - Where else to find an MR2Ice Mailer tip then on the MR2Ice mail list. Julian Thomas offered this suggestion to someone looking for a way to save a list of text search messages:

Here's a trick. You have the msgs of interest highlighted. Use RMB - copy - to a new temp folder.

Open the temp folder and navigate through all the messages, when done, delete all the copies.

November 30, 2000 - Do you use OS/2's Enhanced Editor EPM? Here is a tip on how to change the colored circle that marks found words when doing a search in EPM, compliments of James Oster on the eComStation eGroups mail list:

Get these files from hobbes.nmsu.edu

epmmac.zip EPM macros needed to configure EPM
epmapp.zip you only need etpm.exe from this archive, which is the EPM macro compiler
epmnk.zip EPM documentation User's Guide & Technical Reference
epmbbs.txt explains all the .zip files that make up the epm package

Create a MyCnf.e and add the followings lines then do 'etpm epm'. This will create a new epm.ex file. Rename the epm.ex in \OS2\APPS to whatever you like to have a backup copy, now move the new epm.ex file to \OS2\APPS. See the EPM User's Guide for the options to these configuration items

LOCATE_CIRCLE_STYLE = 3 LOCATE_CIRCLE_COLOR1 = LIGHT_RED + 16777216

I will not be held responsible if you did not make a backup copy of the epm.exe file.

November 30, 2000 - I've been running the Odin win32 launcher for quite a while now, but I wasn't aware there was a a configuration program for the WIN32K.SYS driver until I read the following from Dave McKenna in comp.os.os2.apps:

Go to the \Odin\System32 directory and run the file Win32kcc.exe. This is a program for setting up the Win32k.sys driver's behavior. For RealPlayer to work you must choose 'Use PE only' under the loading type. For some reason, when I use the Win32k.sys driver, all Win32 program icons become invisible. Other than that it seems to work well.

November 30, 2000 - Lewis G Rosenthal on the Odin User list offered the following information on utilities to unpack win32 installation files, if the setup program doesn't run under Odin:

http://WWW-User.TU-Cottbus.De/~kannegv/programm/stix.arj is an unpacker for Stirling Technologies install archives;

http://WWW-User.TU-Cottbus.De/~kannegv/programm/e_wise.arj is an unpacker for Wise install archives.

November 30, 2000 - Also on the Odin User list Christoph Schulte Moenting added the following on creating the win32 registry files:

It is sufficient to run \OS2\SYSTEM\REGCONV.EXE. This will create a fresh SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT - REGCONV is run automatically by REGEDIT2 if those two files are not present, BTW.

December 2, 2000 - Here's an FYI for anyone trying to install the WinCast TV OS/2 driver, from Lorne Sunley, in comp.os.os2.apps:

If you do not have the Wincast card in the computer yet you should not have the "/X" switch specified. That forces the driver to load when it does not recognize the hardware. When that switch is in force the driver will try to access the hardware and will usually trap the driver.

Take off the "/X" switch and the driver should give you a message about not locating the hardware and will exit without trapping.

Then install the card and the driver should load when it detects the card.

Without a sound card you can use earphones to listen to the sound through the audio out on the TV card. Watch out for the sound level though, the cards put out sound at max volume and if you do not have a volume control on your headphones they can blow your ears out...

If you use the YADTV/2 application it will display errors because it cannot locate the sound card, but if you press the "Device" button in the Volume group the volume bar (the top one) may control the sound if the TV card is one of the ones with internal sound level control...

BTW - the best picture is obtained by using the GRADD driver VCAFILT. This will work if you have the SDD/SE or SDD/2 video driver package. The C1 statement in the config.sys file should read SET C1=SDDGRADD,VCAFILT to enable the GRADD picture display. (do this after the TV card is installed). A word of warning, when the VCAFILT driver is installed the sound from the TV card will come on when the WPS starts up. You can prevent this by using the Multimedia Setup program to set the default picture source for the card to the "Test Pattern".

Both YADTV/2 and STWTV support the GRADD display driver.

December 5, 2000 - Here is Daniela Engert yet again, this time with a tidbit of interesting information about where the replacement for OS/2's FDISK, LVM, stores it's configuration information. This was on the eComStation eGroups mail list:

The LVM info is stored *outside* the partitions and *outside* the partition tables, somewhere in the "unused" parts on the disks (left over from the partitioning process). It is totally invisible to pre-LVM OS/2 versions, and doesn't interfere with them in any way.

December 5, 2000 - Here's another LVM tip, this time from Michal Necasek, but again on the eComStation eGroups mail list. This one concerns problems with Zip drives:

Did you try "refreshing removable media', aka LVM /REDISCOVERPRM (IIRC - don't have WSeB/eCS right here)?

December 10, 2000 - I've been discovering all kinds of interesting facts about OS/2 on the eComStation mail list. Here is one from John Martin:

I assume you did Alt-F1, F3 to revert back to VGA,

That does no longer get back to pure VGA but to a SVGA gradd driver :-(

You have to do Alt-F1, F2 then go to \OS2\INSTALL\VGA and run SETVGA.CMD

Using Alt-F1, F3 runs SETGRADD.CMD

December 10, 2000 - From Dave on the Odin User list here are the files to manually install DAX (which is the original name for what is now called Open32, IBM's API that allows OS/2 to translate win32 API calls:

The needed files for DAX are

\os2\dll\pmddeml.dll \os2\dll\pmwinx.dll \os2\install\inst_dos.exe

And \os2\regedit2.exe

Then you need to launch regedit2 to build the registry
Dave

December 12, 2000 - Yet another couple of tips from Rich Walsh, these were posted on comp.os.os2.apps:

Most anything in config.sys that the os would be interested in (e.g. the filenames of drivers, dlls, exes, etc.) are stored by the kernel in uppercase (use Theseus to confirm this). It's very likely that the config.sys processing code calls DosMapCase() to uppercase most entries that don't begin with "SET" or "REM", regardless of whether they really need conversion. Environment variable names are also routinely uppercased (per the specs), though the actual value is left as-is.

BTW... you can use EPM to do casemapping. Select the text, then press Ctrl-F3 to uppercase or Ctrl-F4 to lowercase. Try it and let us know - I doubt it makes more than a 10th of a second difference either way.

December 12, 2000 - On comp.os.os2.setup.misc, Trevor Hemsley offered the following advise to anyone contemplating updating their existing Warp 4 system with the new MCP (Merlin Convenience Pak):

If you install it on the same partition as your current system then it will _try_ to upgrade it. However, your definition and my definition of upgrade is likely not the same as IBM's ;-) The upgrade process takes your current desktop and replaces it with an absolutely bog-standard one and puts a folder on that called something like "Previous desktop". You can drag and drop icons from that previous desktop to the new one. The upgrade process will also try to amend config.sys to add any new lines to it and add new paths to your existing path lines.

If this were my system and I had enough disk space I'd create a new partition and install Boot Manager (if it's not installed already) and install a brand new copy of OS/2 on that new partition. That way you get to leave your currently working system alone and can boot it up to get back here to ask questions ;-) Once the new boot partition is working to your satisfaction you can start using it all the time instead of the old one. You can copy lines out of the config.sys on one partition and add them to the other one, add paths manually to the relevant lines etc.

December 12, 2000 - From Dan Casey on the eComStation eGroups mail list, here is a tip for Lotus Organizer which seems to have a problem with only displaying part of the description on tabs:

I don't know if any one else has seen this, but the 1.5 (and 1.51) versions of Lotus Smartsuite, in the Organizer app, the Tabs in the Organizer only show the Initial (1st letter) of the Tab Name.

Thanks to Jerry Prather (in a USENET post):

The fix was to change the font selection.
In: Section->Customize->Fonts
set the font to medium rather than default.

This has the effect of changing the font size in all of Organizer ..
but at least the names of the Tabs appear, again.

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