From the June 1993 Bits of Blue

By: Jim Clark

The meeting began just a few moments late at 6:20, the delay due to “mechanical problems” (had some difficulty getting the NT [New Technology] to work). But, it was yet another good meeting, with quite a nice group in attendance. This meeting was particularly interesting because the subject was current and interesting to just about everybody who uses an IBM compatible computer — the new operating system DOS 6.0 — and because it was an “open forum” type of a session lead by our astute Prez, Harvey Bruneau. Harvey was to be ably assisted by our talented librarian, Larry Anders, but work demands arose which prevented Larry from making the meeting. Like the legendary knight in shining armor atop a large white steed, Harvey carried the evening by himself.

INDUSTRY/CLUB NEWS: Since NT had delayed start of the meeting, and there is a lot in DOS 6.0 to discuss, industry and club news were omitted.

No formal presentation was prepared nor intended since this was to be a forum, or seminar type of treatment of DOS 6.0. Harvey guided the discussion by introducing the major changes in MS-DOS 6.0 compared to DOS 5.0 and giving a brief review of each: Double Space, Anti-virus, MemMaker and the changes to the MEM command, Backup, Defrag, InterLink and Selective Boot. Installation was also discussed, as were some upgrades of 5.0 features, such as UNDELETE, and some new commands, such as DELDIR, MOVE, and NUMLOCK.

Documentation: The documentation in the manual with the upgrade version is a little sparse and is not nearly as complete as the DOS 5.0 manual; it focuses principally on the changes that have been made from the 5.0 version. (Apparently no one was aware of the documentation that comes with the full version of DOS 6.0, for no one spoke on that subject.). For upgrading to DOS 6.0, then, one should hang onto the manual that came with DOS 5.0. On-line help is quite extensive, however, and one need only type the command at the DOS prompt followed by /? and a help screen appears revealing the hows and whats of the command. Alternatively, type help at the DOS prompt and a screen showing all DOS commands appears, double click on any you’re interested in and, walla, the info appears.

Installation: There were a number present who reported varying levels of difficulty, some requiring some changes to their boot files before satisfactory installation and operation could be achieved. However, I personally had no difficulties installing DOS 6.0, and it seemed that most present who were using DOS 6.0 had no difficulty. Installation instructions seemed adequate for the most part. Rumor had it that one must have DOS 5.0 installed to be able to install the DOS 6.0 upgrade. However, the instructions indicate that one must have only a previous version of DOS to install the upgrade to DOS 6.0. That is logical since a disk partitioned and formatted by an IBM-compatible DOS is required in the first instance, But one need not have a complete installation of any previous version of DOS to install DOS 6.0 — it is enough to have a DOS partitioned and formatted disk. The earliest reported version of DOS to which the DOS 6.0 upgrade has been applied by those present was DOS 3.0.

Double Space: For most, Double Space was fairly easy to install -- and it works as advertised. It appears that it is not as efficient at compression, nor does it have some of the features of the better stand-alone products (i.e., Stacker), but it does do a fairly good job simply. One big advantage is that it loads before anything else and no statements in CONFIG.SYS is required, and except for those needing an uncompressed area for Windows swap, all files (including boot files, such as HIMEM, etc.) may be compressed. The degree of compression using any existing compression program varies with the type of files being compressed - ZIP files almost none, spreadsheets a lot. So, the terminology of doubling disk space that they all use must be taken with a grain of salt. Articles have reported an average disk compression using Double Space at between 1.6-1.8 to 1.

I do not use DSpace, but I tried it on a new disk I was installing. It compressed at about the same degree as SuperStor PRO. Most articles I have read give Stacker a little better compression ratio. I didn’t stick with DSpace because it creates another uncompressed drive with a minimum size of 200K for every compressed drive (or partition) compressed. I run one uncompressed and three compressed partitions. DSpace therefore created an additional 3 drives - one for each compressed partition - giving me 7 drives to deal with in all matters relating to drives. Another feature I did not like is that DSpace does not make provisions for decompression, as do both SS Pro and Stacker -- though some report that decompression is so difficult at this point that it is not really a valuable feature, access to DSpace once installed is limited to DOS; an interface with Windows is not yet a part of the program.

There have been quite a few reports in the news since DOS 6.0 release indicating a lot of difficulties have been encountered with DOS 6.0, including DSpace. A couple of folks at the meeting also reported difficulty with DSpace - trouble resulting in loss of data. Microsoft says that there are 3 million copies of DOS 6 out now and they have received only about 1% of that many calls, and a lot less than that which involved anything significant. Still, there have been some serious problems; problems which will no doubt be corrected in the not-too-distant future.

Anti-virus: This is a welcome addition to DOS, especially for those who haven’t purchased anti-virus protection. It can be installed in both DOS and Windows. It includes detection and correction of 800 viruses, and includes 2 upgrade coupons for $9.95 each. What will happen after that is not known now, but some form of upgrade will likely be continued — as they all do. This feature can be installed as a TSR, but to install all of its protections (features) takes about 46K of memory (23K of conventional and 23K of upper), a fairly high price. Two cautions were noted: Don’t have the anti-virus program TSR when installing new programs on your computer; and be very careful about using the auto correction of detected viruses feature because some false alarms occur with some types of files in some circumstances, and you could lose files.

MemMaker: Another welcome new feature for DOS, especially for those who don’t already use another stand-alone memory management program, like QEMM. This feature is also easy to use. It can be installed at the time of installing DOS 6.0, or at a later time. Though not as efficient at rooting out all of the unused memory and managing memory as the top stand-alone memory management programs, it does a fairly respectable job finding and using unused memory, and auto loading into upper memory. And, it is very easy to use. If you don’t already own a memory management program, or don’t want to invest the bucks in one, this is certainly a good alternative.

Backup: Previous versions of DOS have included a backup capability. The major difference here is that this is a full blown menued program, and it allows for compression of the backup files, It also provides for a range of backup -- from complete, down to a single file, all of which can be selected by the user. This, too, can be installed for DOS, or Windows, or both. It is a good improvement, but here, too, it is not as comprehensive nor as efficient as the top stand-alone programs on the market. Again, for those who don’t now own a backup program, it is a very welcome addition.

An article in a local industry paper stated that this feature would only backup to floppy drives. That is difficult to believe. The manual is silent about the types of devices one can backup to, but a member present noted that the only device he has been unable to use is a tape drive.

Defrag: A fairly fast and easy to use addition to DOS. Some reported it not as fast as the better disk/file maintenance programs. Defrag doesn’t have all of the capabilities of Norton Disk Doctor or PC Tools, of course, but I have found it as good at defragging for my simple purposes as the other programs I have used, including earlier versions of NDD. Defrag is available only at the DOS prompt, and shouldn’t be run at the DOS prompt through Windows.

InterLink: InterLink does the same thing LapLink does -- connect 2 computers together and allow the interchange of files/info between the two. It does not include cables, as LapLink does, and some report it is more cumbersome to use. Nevertheless, for those without LapLink or a similar program, it provides an otherwise missing capability. This feature is available from the DOS prompt.

Selective Boot: A very welcome feature by all DOS users who boot from hard drives. This feature is too sophisticated to go into here in detail. Suffice here to say that it allows for a clean boot from the hard drive in event of some configuration problem which prevents a normal boot -- in effect eliminating the requirement of the past to boot from a floppy in similar circumstances. (This does not mean you shouldn’t keep a bootable floppy, though.) This feature also allows one to boot in any configuration desired by selecting desired options during the boot process. It doesn’t happen automatically, however; these capabilities must be set up, except for the clean boot which requires only pressing F5 at the appropriate time.

Undelete: An undelete capability was available with DOS 5. DOS 6 has expanded a great deal on that capability and developed a menued program which can be installed in DOS, Windows, or both at installation time It provides for three levels of undelete: Sentry, Tracker & Standard. Sentry & Tracker levels use disk space to store the files or information about the files which will not be overwritten and thereby removed from recovery, as with the previous undelete command and with the DOS 6 Standard level of undelete. The old undelete command is still available at the DOS prompt as well.

Move: Another welcome, but dangerous, addition to DOS. The MOVE command allows for moving individual files and up to and including complete directories — replacing the old individual files copy/delete method. It is very easy to use. That combined with the magnitude of action that can be involved makes it a command that should be employed with great care

NumLock: Another very welcome addition, especially for those of us with an older machine which does not have provisions in CMOS for configuring NumLock. NumLock can be turned on or off at the DOS prompt, or as a command in CONFIG.SYS.

SmartDrive: I believe this program has been “upgraded”, but it functions remain essentially the same as with DOS 5. One word of caution came up at the meeting: If using the Double Buffer feature of Smart Drive, be sure to allow sufficient time when shutting down for the data in the buffers to be written to disk; some have lost data when they haven’t allowed sufficient time for the write before turning their machine off. How much is sufficient, I don’t know, but I would allow several seconds as a minimum.

Delete Directory: Also a long-wanted capability, DELDIR allows for deleting directories without first having to empty the directory of all files and subs. It., too, is a dangerous command and should be used very cautiously.

In summary, DOS 6.0 provides some very nice additions to DOS 5.0, but some believe that it should have been given a 5. designation rather than a full number change which signifies a fundamental change, as opposed to added bells & whistles. It has a lot of new and welcome additions, however, especially for those who don’t now have similar capabilities in utilities from other vendors. It is a large capability for not too many bucks, especially the upgrade version. Some problems have cropped up with some of the new features; apparently, the more sophisticated the configuration and/or operation, the more likely one is to encounter any problems. I, for one, however, running a home computer 386/25, with multiple hard drives, modem, scanner, 3 printers, Windows 3.1, and a host of Windows and DOS software of all varieties, have had no (zero, that is) problems with DOS 6.0. And, I am confident that Microsoft is working very hard and fast to come up with answers to all problems encountered so far.

THANKS MUCH, HARVEY, for an excellent job of guiding us through as much of DOS 6 as time would allow. It was a productive session!

Thanks to the generosity of Microsoft (who donated a copy of Access) and your User Group (who donated a copy of DOS 6.0), along with the 50/50 cash drawing, there were some very nice raffle prizes. Those among us to have the good fortune to win are as follows:

The meeting adjourned at about 8:45 PM u