Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!unido!uklirb!gerten
From: gerten@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de (Rainer Gerten)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: window386 in dos4.0 ???
Keywords: incompatable dos4 and win386
Message-ID: <2445@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de>
Date: 20 Feb 90 13:55:12 GMT
References: <6889@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: gerten@uklirb.UUCP (Rainer Gerten)
Organization: University of Kaiserslautern, W-Germany
Lines: 33

In article <6889@tekgvs> toma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy) writes
>Well I have Windows 386 version 2.11 and DOS 4.01, and whenever I try to run
>a DOS application Windows insists on reading drive A: so that I must always
>have a floppy inserted.  This is a bad problem which didn't occur with DOS 3.3
>(I upgraded -- a mistake?) nor does it occur with my copy of Windows 286
>version 2.11.  

I have DOS 4.01 and Win386, Vers. 2.11 installed upon a PS/2, Mod. 55-X61
and it works ok (not fine, because Win386 has some small problems like
very slow spooler etc.). The effect you describe isn't happening at my
machine. Perhaps it's an installation problem ? Look too at your
pif-files for the dos programs and the path, through which you are
accessing the standard progs. Another possibilty is win.ini, where
some entry, which point to the floppy disk, can cause problems.

Beside that, I work alternatively with Win286, Vers. 2.11, because Win386
has the problem of slow spooling (Microsoft told me, it'll be not enough
memory free, but I have no TSR's other than Share, Keyb, and and a Diskcache
loaded. There is a big difference in free memory under windows, if you
are using the BGA-adapter (8514A) and DOS 4.01. A similar installation
with VGA and DOS 3.3 has about 100K more room in conventional memory !

There is another problem with windows: it doesn't work with most of
the drivers supplied from IBM: Diskcache, XMAEM, XMA2EMS and so on
(This is also true for Win286 !). The reason: Microssoft accesses
extended memory in an other way IBM does.

Perhaps one of this hints helps.

Rainer Gerten
University of Kaiserslautern
West-Germany
mail: gerten@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de