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From: bcw@rti.rti.org (Bruce Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Windows 3.0/Multi-tasking/286 & DOS window shells?
Summary: Not possible ...
Message-ID: <1990Dec19.200845.7564@rti.rti.org>
Date: 19 Dec 90 20:08:45 GMT
References: <27220002@hpclapd.HP.COM>
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, RTP, NC
Lines: 52

In article <27220002@hpclapd.HP.COM>, defaria@hpclapd.HP.COM (Andy DeFaria) writes:
> I have  Windows  3.0 installed on  my system.   I've been told that it does
> multi-processing.  I have  a 286 chip though.
> 
> Anyway,  when I'm  in  Windows I don't see   any  multi-processing at  all.
> Whenever a Window application is  running I  get the little hourglass mouse
> cursor and I can't continue to work in another window.

This happens when the application is somewhat mis-behaved and loads
the hourglass cursor while it does some compute-bound operation, but
then doesn't relinquish the CPU to other apps in the system until it's
through.  Windows _is_ multi-tasking, but only for cooperating
processes;  a single ill-behaved task can cause the behavior you
describe.  In general, if the application is going to have the
hourglass displayed for more than a very few seconds (say 5), it
_should_ relinquish the CPU and run in the background, only displaying
the hourglass while it's the window with the input focus.  Too many
applications _don't_ behave very well though.

> If I  can get  multi-processing in Windows 3.0 going  on  a 286 chip then I
> would be a lot  happier but there is  still a big hole  that I see  in this
> environment: [...]
> 
> I had Windows 2.0 for a  time and I  was able to  run COMMAND.COM  from the
> MSDOS "Run" selection.  It put up a  window that I  could type DOS commands
> in.  How is this done in 3.0?

It can't be done on a 286 in 3.0.  You can only swap to full-screen
DOS mode, not the DOS window like you had in 2.11.  

> If it can't be done in 3.0 then isn't this a loss of functionality?

Yes, of course it is.  The consensus seems to be that this isn't an
unreasonable trade-off, given that the new method for running DOS
programs in a window allows all sorts of apps to run that used to
write all over the screen and confuse Windows (or at least the user
running Windows).  In addition, the new approach allows the DOS
app to get a full 640K of memory, rather than just whatever was
available after Windows and its apps were loaded.

Unfortunately it can't work on a 286 :-(.  Worse, there would be
problems running _any_ DOS window in protected mode on a 286 even 
if the DOS app were running in the lower 640K of memory and _didn't_
do anything like direct screen writes.  It would be possible to run
something similar to a Windows 2.11 DOS window by putting the system 
in real mode while the DOS app was running, but performance would be 
terrible.  Under Windows 2.11, Windows was running in real mode anyway,
so there wasn't much of a penalty for having the DOS window.

I'm afraid that you'll either have to live with it or upgrade the
CPU to a 386 of some flavor - a 386sx shouldn't be too different in
cost from a 286 at this point.