911!

Desltop Repair

Got a damaged Desktop? Here are some tips I've used.

Disk Errors

Disk errors may not be as serious as you think. Before you go off the deep end, check out a few things first and you might save a few bucks.

My Maxtor drive beeps when it is having problems. After a shutdown 11/24, the system refused to come up even to the boot manager. I replaced the ribbon cable and that allowed me to get to the boot menu. Then I had to fix corrupt data on the eCS boot drive.

1. If at all possible, create a maintenance partition to do your checkdisks on as well as emergency file copies. See Bootable website for details.

2. Check all disk cables for wear and tear. A worn cable can be the problem. Reseat your cables and replace if needed.

3. Do a checkdisk on the whole system. If currupt files are saved in "FOUND" directories, you may have to delete them. I had to try a couple of times before I decided to delete those directories. After that the problem went away and it appears I have lost no data. I got lucky this time.

4. Make sure to have a backup of at least your data.

Slow System

If your system is running really slow for no apparent reason, try checking to see if there are old print jobs queued up.  I recently was puzzled by my system running slowly and  ran  TOP from  CAD popup and noticed PMSPOOL.EXE hogging up the system. Opening the printer object, the document in the queue showed up and I deleted the job.

Preventive Maintenance

Desktop Archives

When you first install, you usually have to load video drivers and make other changes and it would be handy if the Original Archive could be updated to reflect those changes. Well, there is a way. Run ARCHINST.EXE and this will create a new baseline Archive.

Warp Center

There are some undocumented switches for the Warp Center that can be added to your CONFIG.SYS:

SET KILLFEATUREENABLED=ON
This switch allows you to select processes ti kill when you press the CTRL key when you click on the Running Applications button on the Warp Center. I find Watchcat process killer (on your eCS Application CE) to be more reliable.

SET SCFINDUTILITY=C:\OS2\APPS\PMSEEK.EXE
This changes the File Search to use PMSEEK.EXE rather than the default Warp uses. It is much faster.

SET SCUSEPRETTYCLOCK=ON
This changes the look of the Warp Center clock.

VMDISK

The VMDISK command creates a boot disk as an image file. This image file acts as though you are booting a DOS (or many other Text based OS's) and is useful to run programs that require a certain version of an OS.

VMDISK sourcedrive: targetdrive:\path\osimagefilename

How to get to Part 3 of the Install and application installer.

The WISE INSTALLER has two menubar options: SETTINGS and UTILITY

SETTINGS include such features as Config.sys manager, Desktop Settings, eCS Styler Settings, eCS Theme Manager (Window Controls), eCS Zampa Firewall Settings, Keyboard, Locale, Mouse, Multimedia, LVM, Network, Requestor, TCP/IP, User Accounts, WinECS, and System Settings notebooks.

UTILITY includes eCS Calc, Clock & Planner (job scheduler), Start/Stop Firewall, WiseApp Package Creator/WiseUpdate, Warp Center Save/Restore (all toolbars), and Selective Install of the different parts of the OS Install, Device Drivers, and the Application CD Sampler stuff.

Virtual PC

Virtual PC

Seemlessly integrate your eCS Desktop with any Guest session, including Windows, Linux, and others.

Configuration

Custom Configurations

Create multiple boot options easily for different hardware and software configurations..

USB Drives

For years I have not been able to get the USB flash drives to work. Now after the eCS 1.2 Media Refresh, I installed on a different computer (or it can be a different partition on the same computer) and the flash drives started working on that one. I then compared the two CONFIG.SYS files to see what I was missing on the first machine. I discovered that I was missing one driver and when I manually added the missing line, the USB flash drives started working.

Networking

NET2168 Error

Error: net 2186 - The net account file is missing. In fact, many other NET errors may be due to a missing or corrupt NET.ACC file. Once in a while, you should back up your \IBMLAN\ACCOUNTS\NET.ACC file.

If it's missing simply go to the \IBMLAN\ACCOUNTS directory and copy NETACC.BKP to NET.ACC and restart the requiestor service.

NET.ACC Maintenance

You cant copy your NET.ACC file without having to reboot to a command prompt, but I discovered a few little utilities to do that while your system is up.

BACKACC.EXE - backs up permissions on 386 HPFS volumes, the user accounts database (NET.ACC), and the audit log file (NET.AUD) while LAN Server or REQUESTER s running.

BACKACC [[drive:]pathname
[/F: [drive:]target]
[/L1:[drive:][path][filename]][/A] [/S]]

RESTACC.EXE - restores permissions for 386 HPFS volumes, the user accounts database, and the audit file stored with BACKACC.

RESTACC [drive:]pathname
[[drive:]newname] [/F:[drive:]source]
[/L1:[drive:][path][filename]] [/S]

FIXACC - restores a damaged user accounts database (NET.ACC). The old NET.ACC is renamed to NETACC.BAD. This command requires the Requester and UPM Services are stopped.

Win32 Apps using ODIN

Project Odin

Odin allows may 32 bit Windows applications to run under eComStation and OS/2. The website not only has the Odin software, but a database of applications and how well they work. You need WarpIn, a package installer which you can also get from this site.  I've created a Win32 icon on my desktop that points to PE.EXE to drag 'n drop Win32 Icons to start.  If you are able to use the installer, an ICON will be created on your eCS desktop which loads PE.EXE and points to the application you installed.

Textpad

I've got TextPad 4.7.3 working with ODIN. You can't install it on eCS but you can install it from windows and then use it from eCS with ODIN (or copy it from a Windows Session of Virtual PC with file sharing). Its 97% usable. 

WinAmp

Most features of WinAmp  work well, although the video portions do not work.  The installer worked just fine..  If you dont have the helper driver loaded, just drag the setup.exe file to your PE.EXE icon to Launch.

Emulators

Xfree86 Setup

Setup for EMX and Xfree86 - how it worked for me.