Rich's Ramblings by Rich Schinnell

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Published in the December 1996 issue of the Monitor ,

The monthly magazine of the <a href="http://www.cpcug.org">Capital PC User Group, Inc.</a>

 By <a href="http://www.cpcug.org/user/schinnel"> Rich Schinnell</a>

One of our members wrote me a letter regarding the technical level of this column and others
articles in the Monitor. I have to agree that many of my articles are a bit on the techie side, and hopefully we can get some additional members to write for this magazine to allow us to cover a variety of technical levels. Writing for the Monitor is sort of like the old chicken and egg syndrome: some members expect magazine reports on the latest and the greatest, while others just want to know how to use what they already have.

XT and AT class systems are still around and are probably more than enough to perform the work
that some members need to do. Running WordPerfect 5.1 on anything faster than a 286 (AT class) machine is really not that big an improvement. Except if you're placing graphics in your document. The AT runs faster than anyone can type.

I believe that, in the past, I've tried to
express the opinion that, "if it's working, don't upgrade," or in plain English, if the machine you are using does what you want it to, then forget all the hype about the multimedia whizbangs that are out there being advertised. Don't read PC Magazine, Computer Shopper, or some of the other magazines which tell you that you're not a fulfilled computer user if you don't buy the latest and the greatest. Not everyone needs the latest Pentium Pro 200. <G>

Of course, I won't bring up one of my many "Rich's Rules": "Any computer that does not
communicate with the outside world is less than a whole computer." There is another world out there for those of you brave enough to get your modem fired up. You'll find software patches for your programs that have that elusive undocumented feature (i.e., bug) that some World Wide Web page has the fix for; and real neat add-ons for your regular software that will amaze you and make you wonder how you ever got along without them.

Many people are scared to download files to their computers primarily because someone told
them once that he received a virus from downloading a file. That's another myth that keeps cropping up. Not that you can't get a virus from a program, but if you get your files from reputable sources, you're pretty safe. Besides, you do use the latest anti-virus program, don't you? If not, then download the latest free (for home use) F-PROT from our Members Information eXchange (MIX) BBS at (301) 738-9060. That should give you a reasonable warm fuzzy when you download files.

What is most important is that your computer must be reliable. It should be there when you want
it and works the way you expect. Those of you who have to install every darn program that comes down the pike must expect your machine to just give it up at some point in time. I have seen users' AUTOEXEC.BAT files that would drive many of the techies wild. The best solution sometimes is to boot to the A: drive with a floppy and type FORMAT C: /S. (Big Grin here) :)

I had a member call me and complain that his computer would not allow him to install some
program. I found out by asking the correct questions that he had most of his files in the C: root directory, and it already contained the maximum number of allowable files in the root directory. It took a long time to finish a DIR C: since there were over 500 files in the root. There isn't any such limitation for files stored in a subdirectory. For ease of use and for your own sanity, I suggest that you install programs in logically named subdirectories. Many of the newer install programs suggest a directory name, and I recommend that you use the suggested name.

Once, I helped a member with his computer, and none of the directory names meant anything
logical to me. DOS was stored in a BIN directory, and Windows 3.1 was in a directory called GW (which stood for, as near as I could figure, Graphic Windows <G>). The BIN subdirectory was named that because most of the files that come with DOS are binary files. Strange logic, but there are some who will violently disagree with me. But you are welcome to write your own column if you wish.

KISS means Keep It Simple Stupid

That advice is never more logical than with computers. Creating a monster of an
AUTOEXEC.BAT file will eventually get you to the point where you won't remember what the heck each of the lines you put in that file mean. The smaller and less garbaged up your main two files (CONFIG,SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT) are, the easier it will be to troubleshoot when you have problems.

Ignore all the lines that have SET in front as these lines are setting environmental variables for
some program. Unless you start running out of Environment space, these lines really don't matter much to other programs or interfere with normal operation. The default 256 bytes of Environment space for your system usually is enough, but if you ever get the message "Out of Environment Space," then you will have to put the following line in your CONFIG.SYS:

SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM /P /E:512

(The 512 is the new environment space allocation; you can put 1024 in there if you wish.)

Make sure that you have a copy of COMMAND.COM in your C:\DOS subdirectory.

Some people run out of environment space due to a PATH statement that has almost every
subdirectory in the hard disk listed. Also, some install programs append their own subdirectories to the PATH statement, like the following:

PATH=C:\NEWPROG;%PATH%

This line puts the NEWPROG path at the front of your existing path. Some programs demand to
have their home directory in the PATH statement, but not all really require it.

Every now and then you may want to take a look at your AUTOEXEC.BAT file and see what
new and wonderful things have been added by some unknown install program. Prune the lines that you think can be eliminated, and ALWAYS do this with the :: or REM commands inserted in front of the line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The REM means that a line is a remark, and the double colon (::) is a substitute for the REM command. It's cleaner, and DOS ignores everything that follows the :: on the same line. Use this to insert comments into your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

Some consultants and other "wise" people have taken to putting the commands @ECHO OFF
and CLS in their AUTOEXEC.BAT files. I don't agree and think that this isn't a good idea. If you receive an error in loading some file in your CONFIG.SYS, and the first line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT is CLS, your screen is cleared instantly, and you'll never be able to see that you had an error. Boot time is very critical because your operating system loads lots of drivers and other programs from your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files. If one fails to load, this will often impact on your use of the computer. This is a big reason why some program doesn't work or why you can't access your CD-ROM. Take those CLS and @ECHO OFF statements out of your AUTOEXEC.BAT. It's a small price to pay for the peace of mind knowing that your programs and drivers all loaded successfully.

The same member who wrote me about how technical my articles were had evidently read
somewhere something that I'd always been preaching: Make a bootable disk for your machine with the basic boot files on it. This member created one, but did so for the B: disk drive. Bad move; none of the computers I've seen boot from B:. So, create a bootable disk, but it must be for your A: floppy drive. I will repeat these instructions again:

<pre>FORMAT A: /S

and then copy the following minimum files to the disk from your C:\DOS directory:

COPY C:\DOS\FORMAT.COM A:\
COPY C:\DOS\FDISK.EXE A:\
COPY C:\DOS\SYS.COM A:\
COPY C:\CONFIG.SYS A:\CONFIG.XXX
COPY C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT A:\AUTOEXEC.XXX

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This will give you a warm fuzzy if you ever delete the COMMAND.COM or the hidden system files from your C:
drive root directory. Watch out for
the Windows File Manager as it will allow you to move or delete most any file on your hard disk. One member moved the hidden system files from his C: drive root directory to a subdirectory, and then he wondered why the machine would not boot from that point on. Luckily, he created an emergency boot disk following my suggestions, and things got back to normal pretty fast. Pays to listen. <G>

If your system requires a device driver for your hard disk, like Disk Manager or something like
that, you should copy those files to your new floppy so that you can access your hard disk after booting from your floppy. Additionally, when you're all finished copying to your emergency floppy, you may want to open the disk's write protect tab (if it's 3"), so that if your computer somehow gets infected by a virus, you'll be able to reboot with this clean bootable disk. There is room on this disk to store the minimum F-PROT anti-virus files.

Last word and a hint from Rich for those of you who are using Windows95 and have installed it
from a CD-ROM: In the subdirectory on the CD-ROM named \OTHER\MISC\ERU, you'll find a program that could give you a warm fuzzy, if you take the time to look at it. Copy the contents of this ERU subdirectory to a subdirectory on your hard disk. Take a minute and read the file ERU.TXT.

The Emergency Recovery Utility (ERU) is designed to provide a backup of your system
configuration for use when your system has problems. It creates a backup of your most critical files, and ERD.EXE (which is created when you run ERU.EXE) prompts you to restore those backups. The files backed up include:

AUTOEXEC.BAT, COMMAND.COM, CONFIG.SYS, ERD.EXE, ERD.INF, IO.SYS,
MSDOS.SYS, PROTOCOL.INI, SYSTEM.INI, USER.DAT, and WIN.INI.

ERU.EXE creates an AUTOEXEC.BAT (on your A: drive) which, when booted, will bring up
the program ERD.EXE, and then allow you to restore critical files. Running ERU.EXE compresses these critical files onto a system formatted diskette in your A: drive. There will be underscores (_) in the middle of the file extensions. These are special compressed files, and will be expanded to the correct filenames when you boot this recovery disk and select which files to restore.

Rich Schinnell is the program director for Capital PC, its past president, and a general volunteer
for CPCUG since day one. He is retired from the USN and Vitro Corporation and now does a bit of small business consulting on the side. He runs a BBS, which has been online since 1982, and really enjoys helping people get used to computers. His home page is http://www.cpcug.org/user/schinnel , and he can be reached by phone at (301) 949-9292 evenings
between 6 and 9PM.


<br wp="br1"><br wp="br2"><pre>================================================================
Copyright 1996, by the Capital PC User Group, Inc.  All rights
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<pre> Capital PC User Group, Inc. Plaza East Two
51 Monroe Street
Rockville, Maryland 20850

MIX BBS: (301) 738-9060 (10 MultiTech v.34 modems)
(301) 738-9061 Alternative modem

Office: (301) 762-9372

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