Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!bwdls61.bnr.ca!bwdls58!mlord
From: mlord@bwdls58.bnr.ca (Mark Lord)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Why do large devices need SHARE?
Keywords: SHARE MS-DOS 4.01 4DOS
Message-ID: <4927@bwdls58.UUCP>
Date: 19 Nov 90 19:34:37 GMT
References: <28733@shamash.cdc.com>
Sender: mlord@bwdls58.UUCP
Reply-To: mlord@bwdls58.bnr.ca (Mark Lord)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 25

In article <28733@shamash.cdc.com> slc1290@hare.udev.cdc.com (steve chesney x4662) writes:
>Under DOS 4.01, SHARE is loaded automaticly if you have a disk partition 
>greater than 32 MB.  When I tried out 4DOS to replace COMMAND.COM, this 
>did not happen, but I did get an error message informing me that SHARE
>is needed for large devices.  THe MS-DOS documentation seems to imply that
>SHARE is needed mostly for file concurrency with networks and (my inference)
>multi-tasking or application switching.  If I don't do networks or use the 
>same file from two applications at the same time do I need it?  My disk is 
>66 Meg.

A popular question that, which makes sense since MS didn't exactly go out
of their way to document the answer..

SHARE is needed for FCB support (emulation of old calls or something) on disks
with large partitions.  Without it, FCB calls can trash the disk.

I use NOSHARE from Simtel20 instead, which merely causes FCB usage attempts
to fail without harming anything.  It is MUCH smaller than SHARE, and thus far
has only caught one offending program.. so you don't miss much by not having
SHARE loaded, and NOSHARE protects ya from abuse.
-- 
 ___Mark S. Lord__________________________________________
| ..uunet!bnrgate!mlord%bmerh724 | Climb Free Or Die (NH) |
| MLORD@BNR.CA   Ottawa, Ontario | Personal views only.   |
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