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From: mrk@gvgspd.UUCP (Michael R. Kesti)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: unexpected "TSR's"
Message-ID: <307@gvgspd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 10-Oct-87 03:30:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: gvgspd.307
Posted: Sat Oct 10 03:30:31 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Oct-87 06:15:10 EDT
Reply-To: mrk@gvgspd.UUCP (Michael R. Kesti)
Organization: Grass Valley Group, Grass Valley, CA
Lines: 54

Since I have begun to use Bob Frolick's AT program, I have discovered that
some programs (notably Procomm and TurboC) appear to attach themselves to
DOS in TSR fashion.  Especially, they reassign the vector for interrupt 16
(keyboard services) in the course of their execution, and do *NOT* restore
this vector upon termination.  This causes failure of AT, as it compares the
code pointed to by this vector to determine whether it is already installed.
When this vector is changed, it fails to recognize itself, and re-installs
itself, losing any previously scheduled events!

I am happy to report, however, that I have found a work around for this
problem.  In both cases (Procomm and TurboC, that is), I was already using
batch files to invoke these programs, and have found that the TSR management
utilities INSTALL and REMOVE, recently published in PC Magazine; along with
FAKEY, recently posted here, could be used to advantage in them.  INSTALL
saves the current state of the interrupt vectors and free memory prior to
TSR installation , so that REMOVE may later be used to restore the system to
the state it was in prior to the installation, effectively removing the TSR
in question.  FAKEY provides a means to supply keystrokes to susequently
invoked programs when run from batch files.  The fundamental scheme goes
something like this:  Suppose Procomm is invoked from CALL.BAT.  CALL.BAT
would include:

	echo off
	install procomm
	.
	.
	. other commands, as required
	.
	.
	:end
	fakey "\r"
	remove
	cls

The invocation of INSTALL need not include the program name parameter
("procomm" in this example), but is a convenience.  INSTALL does its thing
with the vectors and free memory specs, then, upon execution of the commands
following the label "end", REMOVE is used to restore the system.  The FAKEY
invocation is used to automagically supply the affirmative response to
REMOVE's prompt "Press ESC to abort or ENTER to remove procomm".

The only caveat to all this is that you must not invoke AT or REMOVE while
"shelled out" of Procomm, TurboC, or what-have-you; but this should be
fairly easy to live with (at least it is for me!).

I hope that this information saves at least one of you fine people some
grief!  If need be, I would be happy to (re?)post INSTALL, REMOVE, and
FAKEY.  Just let me know if this is justified.

-- 
===================================================================
Michael Kesti		Grass Valley Group, Inc.
P.O. Box 1114   	Grass Valley, CA  95945
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