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From: jsims@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (J. Robert Sims)
Subject: Re: MS-DOS v5.0 Release Date 11th June
Message-ID: <1991Jun13.161907.25853@vuse.vanderbilt.edu>
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Organization: Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, Nashville, TN, USA
References: <1006@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz> <72798@microsoft.UUCP> <6669@gssc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1991 16:19:07 GMT

In article <6669@gssc.UUCP> timr@gssc.UUCP (Tim Roberts) writes:
>In article <72798@microsoft.UUCP> bobsc@microsoft.UUCP (Bob SCHMIDT) writes:
>>(David Crowley) writes:
>>%% 	Ohh, yea and another thing. Is it possible to set up expanded
>>%%       memory, extended memory, put stuff up in himem and still be able
>>%%       to run win in standard mode? I couldn't get it to work. I can
>>%%       only run in 386enh mode which is fine, but I was wondering?-)
>>
>>As for the conflict between DOS 5 UMB support and Windows '286 mode...
>>You're not hallucinating; the conflict is real.  Windows detects that
>>some other protected-mode software is running, and won't load.  I can't
>>say if/when this conflict will go away.
>
>Bob, is this the official Microsoft position, or are you speaking on your own?
>Your last sentence shows extreme short-sightedness and a lack of understanding
>of the seriousness of this problem.
>

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if this was the official position.  I
called tech support because Word for Windows appeared to be grabbing
more system resources than it should; I had two documents open, and
couldn't print due to insufficient memory! (With _ample_ available
RAM).  The resources figure was quite low, but from what I could tell
WfW was grabbing over 50% of system resources.  Tech support told me
that the resources had disappeared into a black hole; the solution was
to restart Windows, because Windows does not properly release
resources when applications are finished.  When I asked about an
update, I was told that "Microsoft doesn't consider this to be a bug,"
and that I should reboot my machine often to eliminate the problem.  

Microsoft said the same thing about a bug in Word for Dos 5.5's
postscript driver.  In certain fonts (Courier, I think), subscripts
are totally misaligned horizontally.  I was told that this fix was not
on their future plan; their developers were working on a different
project.

Microsoft tech support is also unhelpful with any problem or question
not documented in the manual, and does not return phone calls when
they say they will.  Microsoft's policy is to develop something until
it's saleable, and then screw anybody with problems.

If Microsoft developers would spend more time on the core of the
software, and less on fancy hidden credit screens, the software might
be better.

Rob