Virtual OS/2 International Consumer Education

January 1999

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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 editor@os2voice.org


December 17, 1998 - Our first tip of the month is from David Graser for those using LS-120 drives with Warp:
Having problems accessing WinOS/2 or the DOS prompt under OS/2 and you are using an LS-120 floppy drive, check the config.sys file and make sure the "basedev=ibmatapi.flt" is at the end of the basedev statements. For some reason, if it is positioned after the *.sys or *.add basedev's, you will not be able to access DOS or WinOS/2.

December 17, 1998 - David Graser again with a tip, this one on

Installing a program and when finished it states that there were deferred (locked) files and the machine must be rebooted for the changes to take place, and when you reboot the machine the following message appears:

The locked file device driver is loaded.

Processing locked files...

But then the message

There is not enough disk space available to process locked files.

How can this be when you know you have plenty of disk space free? Check OS/2's config.sys file and make sure the "Basedev" statements are after the "IFS=C:\OS2\HPFS.IFS /CACHE:2048 /CRECL:64 /AUTOCHECK:CDFG". If you have placed them before this IFS statement, you will get the above error message every time and won't be able to process the locked files.Installing a program and when finished it states that there were deferred (locked) files and the machine must be rebooted for the changes to take place, and when you reboot the machine the following message appears:


December 19, 1998 - Woah, David is on a roll this month. Here is another tip from David Graser:

Here is another tip based on problems I have encountered with Warp 4 and the solutiion I found for the problem. I don't know if it is worth publishing, but I would like others to know so their experiences with OS/2 will be more pleasant.

Are you one of those people who has an Adaptec 2940 SCSI card who has downloaded and replaced their AIC7870.add device driver with the one from Adaptec's web page? If so and you are experiencing the workplace shell hanging up every so often when booting up OS/2, then try replacing the AIC7870.add with the one that came in Warp or one of the fixpacks. Hopefully you backed up the orginal before replacing it with Adaptec's version.

If one is using the freeware program XFolder.083, it will show the Workplace shell hanging up at the "WPDevTimer" when you boot up. Replacing the AIC7870.ADD basedev with the one which comes with Warp 4 will eliminate the Desktop from hanging due to this.


December 19, 1998 - here's a tip from Matt Linder on comp.os.os2.bugs:

The service packs on os/2 warp cannot be installed onto a system that has NTFS formatted drives this is a confirmed screwup in my opinion! (Lazy programmers must have assumed just because a drive is accessable you can read it, DUH!) Yea, I know that NTFS looks like HPFS (0x7) but they didn't make os/2 smart enough, NT knows the Diff!

The quick rules for applying service to an OS/2 system.
1. Drive C: must be formatted Fat16, or off course HPFS
2. All drives in the system must be formatted Fat16 or HPFS, unless you set the enviorment varible than directs the service.exe to only look at the drive you specify.

If the above two conditions are not met os/2 service.exe will give you a bogus error msg as follows, which is total BS:

"An error occurred while searching for files to update.
The reason may be old or corrupt CSF logfiles,
CSF_SEL.000 file, or file system corruption.
See README file for more information."

With f.140, you can set an environment variable CSFDRIVEAPPLY that will restrict drive searching to the boot drive and the drive you specify. Ex: set csfdriveapply=e: Where e: is the drive with os/2 on it.

You can also tell it to load the fixpacks from another location. set csfcdromdir=drive:\path where you would enter the drive and path to the fixpk directory tree


December 19, 1998 -On the PMView Beta Preview List Dave DeGear had this answer for the question: "is there a way to specify username and password for an ftp link in URL form?"

There sure is. I use this format quite often.

ftp://myname:mypassword@yoursite.com or
http://myname:mypassword@yoursite.com

...Dave


December 21, 1998 - On the OS/2 List, Stephen A. Carter and Matt Ion had these tips for deleting files with spaces in them:

Matt Ion: Just use DEL "EA DATA. SF" (including the quotes, and make sure you get the spaces right!) to remove it.

Stephen A. Carter: You can also use wildcards: DEL EA?DATA.?SF

(I think I had to do that once when I was forced to boot from a DOS floppy after a botched installation, and DOS wouldn't let me use quotes.)


December 21, 1998 - On the VOICE Help List, Eric W. Burgin offers this tip on what to do if your system keeps popping up annoying dialog-boxes when your floppy/removable/CDROM drives are empty:

Add the line AUTOFAIL=YES to your config.sys and the error will stop.


December 21, 1998 - Randy Petersen posted the following on comp.os.os2.networking.tcp-ip:

A few good tech tips on TCP/IP v4.1 from IBM - http://service5.boulder.ibm.com/pspsdocs.nsf/c7a34b35e55986f9862563cc00604815?OpenView&Start=1&Count=300&Expand=71#71


December 31 1998 - What would be a tip page without at least one from Duane Chamblee of Indelible Blue, the maintainer of D's World - http://duanec.indelible-blue.com, a great place to go to get all your most common Warp 4 updates in one place:

RMVIEW and the HardWare Manager only show device drivers(software) that loaded and reported themselves. Network cards drivers and many other drivers DON'T report themselves.

In Warp4, ResourceManager was given some "detection" code...
RMVIEW /DC shows the currently detected hardware, whether or not a RM aware driver is loaded.

RMVIEW /IRQ - Gives the current RM aware IRQs
RMVIEW /IRQ /DC - shows the currently detected IRQs (this will be different)

/IO, /DMA, etc. work the same way.


January 4, 1999 -Need help with Star Office 5.0? Here is a great place to ask questions, according to our first tip of the new year from a post on comp.os.os2.bugs by Rich Steiner:

Server is starnews.stardivision.com, and there are a pile of newsgroups there for support purposes (some English, some German).


January 5, 1999 - Here is a tip from Dr. Martin R. Hadam on the OS/2 List is for BackAgain/2 users:

you may try to include SET BA2_SCSI_LOGFILE=c:\scsilog.txt in your config.sys. This will create a logfile of scsi-related (error) messages; something which seems to plague BA/2 recently.


January 6, 1999 - Trying to figure out how to create an envelope in StarWriter? Here's the secret from Carsten Mueller on comp.os.os2.apps:

please start StarWriter (File/New/Document), select Insert/Envelope.


January 8, 1999 -So you have a new system but can't use a CD-ROM and floppy to install Warp. here is another tip from Duane Chamblee on how to find out how to do it.

You could also use this TechDoc (big SPLIT URL):

http://service5.boulder.ibm.com/pspsdocs.nsf/8d77653332b629ab862563cc005ee09a/f4bcb970ce3f7faa862563dc005d6184?OpenDocument

...which describes how to copy the files to the harddrive and install from there. (this
can be done from DOS, etc)


January 10, 1999 - Have you ever wanted to speed up your printing? There is a bi-directional printer port driver on IBM's DDPak site which can help if your system supports an ECP parallel port, you have a bi-directional cable, a free IRQ and you have a printer that supports this. bidi.exe is available at http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/html/CE7558BA7305FF150625636F007AAA3D.html. Here are some directions on how to get it to work from Ted Miller on comp.os.os2.setup.misc:

Heres what I had to do in order to get the bidi driver to work with my lexmark 3200 printer:

-Set the parallel port to ECP in CMOS
-install the bidi driver per instructions in the readme file
-Right click on your printer object and choose the "Output Port" tab in the dialogue window
-Click on the "Update Port Driver" button (your spooler will have to be disabled)
-In the dialogue window indicate the directory where the bidi install files are (the prompt is for A:\)
-Then right click on LPT1 and click on properties.
-click on the "Advanced" button
-select ECP as your bidirectional mode
-re-enable the spooler

It worked for me. YMMV.

Ted Miller

Editor note: I tried this with my Epson 1520 Color Stylus using the bidi driver and it stopped working, once I tried the above. Before trying the above, make sure you back up your CONFIG.SYS and the files the bidi driver replaces - PARALLEL.PDR, PARALLEL.HLP. To restore back to your original printer port driver you have to follow the above directions, but use your backup PARALLEL.PDR instead of the bidi version. You don't have to change your config.sys back to using PRINT01.SYS unless the problem is a result of PAR1284.SYS requiring an IRQ. Make sure you read the document included in the bidi.exe. There are warnings about a chipset incompatibility and also states that it requires the "latest Lexmark PCL5 printer driver" which implies it will only work with Lexmark PCL5 printers.


January 11, 1999 -If you are are using Lotus Word Pro, did you ever wonder if you can get rid of the Welcome screen that always pops up when you start it? Well according to Klaus Duellmann on comp.os.os2.apps:

You can in general get rid of the welcome dialog (and the logo) simply by starting wordpro using the parameters -S -Q


January 11, 1999 - Here's another Star Office tip. This one how to turn Star Office's little help balloons back on. this tip is from Steve & Michelle Plumb on the OS/2 List:

Under the HELP menu there is an entry called "Tips" Selecting this entry will cause a check-mark to be placed next to it and the help balloons should re-appear.


January 13, 1999 - Did you know that OS/2's TCP/IP stack (both 4.0x and 4.1) has some built in protection against the dreaded "Ping of Death" or SYNFLOOD? Here is a tip from IBM's TCP/IP document site - http://service5.boulder.ibm.com/pspsdocs.nsf/c7a34b35e55986f9862563cc00604815/8a384023f92790f18625653e004eab22?OpenDocument

For TCP/IP 4.0 - apply the latest MPTS/TCP/IP update. This will give you a new program -SYNDEF.EXE. This works as follows:
SYNDEF.EXE ON (enables SYN defenses)
SYNDEF.EXE OFF (disables SYN defenses)
SYNDEF.EXE -? (displays SYNDEF syntax)

For TCP/IP 4.1 -
The ability to protect against this type of attack is built in to TCP/IP 4.1. To enable this protection:

1. To GET the current status of the SYNATTACK parameter in the INETCFG.INI file, go to an OS/2 command line and type:

INETCFG -G SYNATTACK, then press Enter.

2. By default, SYNATTACK is set to 0, which means OFF.

3. To SET the SYNATTACK parameter in the INETCFG.INI file to an ON state, (1), type the following at an OS/2 command line:

INETCFG -S SYNATTACK 1

4. This new setting in TCP/IP 4.1 will now prevent the SYNATTACK from occurring.


January 13, 1999 - Is that dancing elephant come back to haunt you? I am of course speaking of the IBM registration reminder. On the Aurora beta FAQ -http://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/products/aurora/faq/index.html I found this, which also appears to apply to Warp 4 as well -

If you find that recurring registration notification messages become a nuisance, you can completely disable the registration tool by running:
D:\OS2\ART\ARTADMIN.EXE, where D: is your boot drive.

Features
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