Copyright 2007 TeX Users Group. You may freely use, modify and/or distribute this file. ===================================================================== Some DOS/Windows related issues (file: dos.txt) ===================================================================== There are some DOS related issues that may come up when using DVIPSONE, DVIWindo, Y&YTeX. These are not specific to this particular software, but are mentioned here since you may come across them, and may not be familiar with work-arounds for potential problems with DOS. NOTE: Many of these issues are no longer a concern in Windows 95 or Windows NT File sharing: ------------- If you are using Windows 95, you are using VSHARE, With SHARE or VSHARE installed you will not be able to leave a file open in some editors. A few editors (like MicroSoft Write) keep files open while you edit them in a Window. Other editors (like NotePad) do not. With these editors you have to close the file before running it through TeX. Extended Memory: ---------------- Windows requires at least 4 meg of memory. SMARTDRV or other disk cache can easily take another 1 or 2 meg. It's not uncommon for the ATM cache to be one half to one meg. Y&Y TeX needs 2 meg of free RAM when it starts. So an 8 meg machine is a minimum configuration. You can run successfuly on a machine with limited extended memory if you have an adequate swap file set up, preferrably a permanent swap file. `Adequate' means something like 10 or 20 meg (not 1 or 2 meg :-). Conventional Memory: -------------------- While most of Y&Y TeX runs in extended memory, some part requires conventional memory for such things as `transfer buffers'. Windows uses up a part of conventional memory. Resident TSRs VXDs eat up more, particularly such things as network drivers. Make sure to load DOS high, and use the upper memory blocks as much as possible. Use the DOS utility MEM to check out memory usage. You want to have as much as possible of the 640k conventional memory free as possible. `System Resource': ------------------ Windows 3.1 manages various types of resources (windows, pens, bitmaps, icons) using two 64 kbyte segments called GDI and USER. If these start to get heavily used (over 50%) Windows will start to act erratically. Windows 95 still has such limitations, but they are now on subsets of resources, so it is very unlikely you will run into them. Windows INI files: ------------------ `Profile files' like WIN.INI, ATM.INI and DVIWINDO.INI must be less than 64 k bytes in length. If they get close to that length or longer, they are quietly corrupted, with potentially disastrous results. WIN.INI can get very long if you have (i) lots of fonts installed and (ii) have these fonts installed on more than one printer/port. You can check your WIN.INI for multiple sections with `softfonts=...' entries. If WIN.INI gets close to 64 k byte you may have to clean up WIN.INI, uninstall some fonts, or remove one of the printer/port entries. Maximum number of files open: Limitations on the size of the environment: ------------------------------------------- If you define many new environment variables, you may run up against the DOS environment size limitation. You can increase the environment size by adding a line like SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS\ /E:2048 /p to your CONFIG.SYS file, where the number after /E: specifies the number of bytes to be set aside for environment variables. You should, however, avoid making the environment size much larger than really needed, since the environment is copied into the 64k data segment of each DOS programs that you run - and some of these may not have much space left in that data segment as it is. Limitation on the length of command lines: ------------------------------------------ DOS has a limit of 127 characters on a command line. This can be a problem if you are trying to pass many parameters to DVIPSONE, for example. In the case of DVIPSONE, you may want to set up commonly used command line parameters in the file DVIPSONE.CMD. Then only parameters that have not already been specified in this file need be mentioned on the command line. DVIPSONE also can read `indirect command files' (a.k.a. `response files'). A file name preceded by `@' is taken to be the name of a file with command line flags and command line parameter. The limitation on line length applies to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file also. The most serious consequence of this is that your PATH variable may not be as long as you would like it to be. There is no error message, the part that does not fit is simply snipped off. So you may think that a given directory is on your PATH when in fact it is not. In AUTOEXEC.BAT, use the PATH=... form rather than SET PATH=... to squezze out a few more characters. You can check your environment variable settings by typing SET at the DOS command prompt. If you have DOS 6.0 you may use the SET command also in CONFIG.SYS - not just AUTOEXEC.BAT - and there is no limit on line length for lines in CONFIG.SYS. You cannot use the PATH=... form here though, you must instead use SET PATH=... In Windows NT there is no system wide autoexec.bat and config.sys. Instead the files autoexec.nt and config.nt are used when launching a console application or DOS program, unless a PIF file explicitly specifies other files.