9 Apr 1995

Realistic Prerequisites

The claim that either Warp or Chicago will run on a machine with only 4 megabytes of RAM is questionable. In both cases it is possible to load the basic operating system and run simple applications. However, additional memory is needed if Warp is to run Windows applications, multimedia, HPFS, or the Internet Connection package.

To get the full benefit from Warp, a machine should have 8 megabytes of memory. If you intend to simultaneously download files from the network, play music, and edit a large document with Word 6, then a 12 megabyte machine might be recommended. The same is true of Windows 95 (Chicago), so this is a statement about the direction of technology and not about any particular system.

First Clean Your Windows

A common problem that users have after installing Warp is some confusion trying to run WINSOCK applications. WINSOCK is a DLL routine, and the standard Windows processing, which Warp doesn't change, is to search for any DLL first in the \WINDOWS directory, then in the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdirectory, and then in the DOS path.

Now we encounter a fundamental difference between Microsoft and IBM. Microsoft, following the lead of Steve Jobs and the Macintosh, assumes that a PC must be a simple system that takes care of all the configuration details automatically. In concrete terms, Microsoft installs all its system support code into the WINDOWS and WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory and encourages all other vendors to do much the same. This works wonderfully well as long as there is only one copy of anything, or at least that two modules with the same name do the same thing and you only need the one with the latest date.

IBM, on the other hand, realizes that as the PC grows toward 16 megabytes of RAM and a Gigabyte of disk, real systems will never be all that simple. The OS/2 practice is to install each component it its own directory. Multimedia support goes in MMOS2, basic LAN support in IBMCOM, the file server client goes in IBMLAN, and Internet support goes in TCPIP. As each new component is added to the system, its directory is added to the PATH (to find EXE modules) and to the LIBPATH (to find DLL modules). This approach increases the complexity of simple systems, but it provides the control needed for more sophisticated configurations.

When Warp is installed, a vanilla installation will produce an OS/2 PATH (from CONFIG.SYS) that looks like:

D:\OS2;D:\OS2\SYSTEM;D:\OS2\INSTALL;D:\;D:\OS2\MDOS;D:\OS2\APPS;C:\WINDOWS ;D:\MMOS2;D:\VIEWER\BIN;D:\TCPIP\BIN;D:\TCPIP\UMAIL;

and a DOS PATH (from AUTOEXEC.BAT) that looks like:

PATH=D:\OS2;D:\OS2\MDOS;D:\;C:\WINDOWS;D:\TCPIP\DOS\BIN;

Of course, the disk letters may vary, but the important matter here is that C:\WINDOWS occurs first in both the OS/2 and DOS paths, and in any event, WINDOWS will always search its own directory first. Since the WINSOCK.DLL that OS/2 supplies, which is needed for Windows programs to run under OS/2, is installed in the \TCPIP\DOS\BIN directory, it will not be found if a Microsoft or other WINSOCK.DLL is installed in \WINDOWS. Worse, any commonly used TCP/IP utility installed in the Windows directory will be found before the corresponding OS/2 utility in \TCPIP\BIN.

Although this can be cleaned up later on, it may be a good practice to address the problem before installing Warp. Check the \WINDOWS directory for the following files:

WINSOCK.DLL, PING.EXE, ROUTE.EXE, IFCONFIG.EXE

If they are found, move them to a separate directory and add them to the Plain Old DOS PATH in AUTOEXEC.BAT. Reboot and verify that the old WINDOWS Internet programs still function correctly.

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