Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!cs.uoregon.edu!getafix.cs.uoregon.edu!akm From: akm@getafix.cs.uoregon.edu (Anant Kartik Mithal) Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc Subject: Re: PCTools v7.0 anomalies? Message-ID: <1991Jun24.003652.23968@cs.uoregon.edu> Date: 24 Jun 91 00:36:52 GMT References: <1436@voodoo.UUCP> Sender: usenet@cs.uoregon.edu (Netnews Owner) Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Oregon Lines: 81 In article <1436@voodoo.UUCP> stu@voodoo.boeing.com (Stuart Liddle) writes: >4) Why does running PCTOOLS at the dos prompt come up with a different .CFG >file for the shell than when I run PCSHELL at the dos prompt???? I *think* I figured out the answer to that one. If you type "PCTOOLS" at the pronmpt, it uses one configuration file, and if you type "PCSHELL", it uses another. there is a batch file called pctools in the PCTOOLS directory, which you might want to take a look at. I find this extremely frustrating as I have different things in different configuration files, and I want them to be the same... >If anybody else is having "funny" problems with their new PCTools v7.0, please >share it with me and others on the net. > >Thanks, Sure... At this point, I am not sure that I am real happy about having PC Tools... a) The mouse in the graphics mode is screwy. I find that the graphics version of the mouse is very slow (i.e. the arrow pointer). So I've switched to using the non-graphics mouse even though I am in graphics mode. b) selecting with the mouse is slow. There is a significant time lag between clicking on an object (say a file name) and the file getting highlighted. c) The shell is not compatible with the windows file manager or with the DOS 5.0 shell. For example, if you click on the first file in a list, hold SHIFT down, and click on , say the 5th, this only selects the first and the 5th, not the files in between. d) The mouse speed keeps varying. I keep having to run PCCONFIG to fix this problem. When I do run PCConfig, the problem goes away immediately: i don't even have to mess with the mouse speed. What happens is that the mouse comes up slow (irritating), so I run PC config, and the mouse speed is back up to 100%. I am using a logitech mmouse with the latest driver (5.00). e) In windows (etc), you can click in the scroll bar to do do a page down. In PCSHELL, clicking in the scroll bar positions the thumb to that place, and the file list correspondingly. This is confusing because if you have a long file list, you might miss files without knowing baout them. f) PC Cache does now allow you to specify the minimum size of the cache when windows is running. There is a /win switch to tell it to downsize when windows comes up, but nothing to tell it what the size should be. Also, when windows quits, the cached writes are disabled, and they do not get re-enabled when windows quits. Sounds like that should be possible, considering that the cache comes back up the the right size. My overall impression is that Central point has put the user interface together somewhat sloppily. The package is trying to do too much, I think, and not very cleanly. THere are 8 manuals. (Might be more scattered around my apartment, but 8 in front of me right now...) The installation takes care of most things, but uses up 7.8 megs for the complete system. There is a list of files and what they are supposed to do, but a) the list if organized according to function, not alphabetically. THis is okay if you are an expert and know every function, but confusing if all you want to know is what a file does. I wanted to delete files for functions I don't plan to use, and the list was not adequate to that task. I think I will give this a couple more days, then post a review... My feeling is that windows users might be better served by the new version of Norton's utilitys. kartik -- Anant Kartik Mithal akm@cs.uoregon.edu Network Manager, (503)346-4408 (msgs) Department of Computer Science, (503)346-3989 (direct) University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1202