Message-ID:	<000201c10420$d4caa740$c008e289@mpaul>
From:	"Matthias Paul" <Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
To:	<opendos AT delorie DOT com>
References:	<20010702195628 DOT INJR287 DOT mta2-svc DOT virgin DOT net AT leo>
Subject:	Re: multitasking gives blank screen
Date:	Tue, 3 Jul 2001 17:38:53 +0200
Organization:	University of Technology, RWTH Aachen, Germany
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Reply-To:	opendos AT delorie DOT com

On 2001-07-02, Richard Adamson wrote:

> Sorted! Everything works! I am baffled, but happy :-)

I am happy to hear that - and astonished as well...

> What it came down to was that once or twice I had run the
> _TASKMGR utility *before* installing TASKMGR, by mistake, and 
> (getting an error message) then installed TASKMGR. On these 
> occasions, it worked (even the hot keys / menu--I didnt find 
> this out straight away because I wasnt experimenting with them 
> anymore.)

For the others: I sent him the _TASKMGR.EXE utility developed
by Chris Wilson in 1997 - part of the "OpenDOS utilities".
It talks to the TASKMAX/TASKMGR API to list or switch tasks
from the command line or unregister the TASKMGR menu system.
Nothing special about it...

>   So now, with _TASKMGR in autoexec before TASKMGR, everything
> works. And it *is* doing two things at once eg pkunzipping in 
> background. (I havent got much installed yet to test...)

I wonder how this works, but if it does, we should try to
find out *why* TASKMGRīs menu system works after _TASKMGR
has been run. Sounds like an uninitialized variable or some-
thing similar to me...

I have never encountered exactly the same problem as described by
Richard, but sometimes I am having similar problems with black
screens or strange fonts when starting TASKMGR or creating
new tasks. And it seems others have similar problems as well.

So, I would like to ask all the others also experiencing these
problems to try locate Chris Wilsonīs OpenDOS utilities (or ask
me via private mail for the _TASKMGR.EXE utility) and check out
Richardīs proposed workaround. I would like to know if this works
for you or not. If it does, this may help to track down a spurious
though nasty bug in TASKMGR.

> Im extremely grateful for your help, and of course, if you want
> me to experiment or try specific tests to satisfy any curiosity
> you have about this, Im at your service.

Richard, did you ran your tests with the spartanic configuration
files recently discussed in this forum, or files based on the
prototypes I sent you in private mail? Just to make this absolutely
clear to me: Are you using EMM386 /MULTI or not right now, and are
you starting TASKMGR with or without /S now?

Greetings,

 Matthias

PS. Please donīt post excerpts of private mails into public
forums again, itīs against the Netiquette.

-- 

Matthias Paul, Ubierstrasse 28, D-50321 Bruehl, Germany
<mailto:Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>; <mailto:mpaul AT drdos DOT org>
http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html; http://mpaul.drdos.org

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