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From: boerner@ut-emx.UUCP (Brendan B. Boerner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Need input for future DOS release
Message-ID: <26909@ut-emx.UUCP>
Date: 26 Mar 90 03:44:59 GMT
Organization: UT Austin Computation Center, Microcomputer Technologies
Lines: 39

Here are a couple of things I wouldn't mind seeing in a new version of
MS-DOS.  I realize some have already been mentioned but I thought I'd
send the whole list as is anyway.

1) The ability to load/unload device drivers at any time - not just
during the boot process.  Sorta like Novell's Netware Loadable Modules
on NetWare/386.

2) A TSR Manager.  Programs written to use it would let it know what
resources that they need (e.g. what interupts they would like to be
activated on).  It would keep track of what program uses what
interrupts so if a call were made to unload a TSR, it would be able to
unload it without affecting others in the chain.  This mechanism could
also handle making sure ALL tasks attatched to that interrupt get
called.  This would prevent TSRs from attatching to an interrupt and
then not calling whatever was previously attatched.  By not requiring
TSRs to call others in the chain, it seems that memory could be
compacted when a TSR was removed without affecting others (since they
wouldn't be storing addresses of other TSRs to run).

3) A file system which supports symbolic links, e.g. more than one
directory entry could point to the same file.

4) Rename (or move) across directories within the same volumne which
does not require a copy.  I beleive that DOS already provides this
although COMMAND.COM doesn't use it.

5) A better wildcard capability.  Dir *X.* would display files ending
with X, with any extension, not all files.

6) A larger command line limit.  This would allow paths with length
greater than 128 chars.

Brendan
--
Brendan B. Boerner		Phone: 512/471-3241
Microcomputer Technologies	The University of Texas @ Austin
Internet: boerner@emx.utexas.edu     UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!boerner
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