Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 16:50:52 +0100 From: Matthias Paul Subject: Re: Task-switching Win 3.1 To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Message-id: <368F03F5C75@reze-1.rz.rwth-aachen.de> Organization: Rechenzentrum RWTH Aachen X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com On Fri, 16 Oct 1998 Ray Greene wrote: > Is it possible to use Taskmgr to switch out of Win 3.1 > back to OpenDOS? This *is* possible, but there are three things involved: - The modes of operation of both, DR-DOS TASKMGR, and Win 3.1 - The hotkeys used to activate the Windows TASKMAN and the DR-DOS TASKMGR - The location of the TASKMGR.EXE file aka INI file settings. If you installed DR-DOS manually or installed Windows after DR-DOS, you need to apply the necessary changes to the Windows setup manually (otherwise the DR-DOS SETUP can do this for you). I don't know all the INI directives by heart, so I suggest to download the MPDOSTIP.ZIP archive from my web-page, and have a look into the NWDOSTIP.TXT file. Even if this is written in German you should be able to find the chapter with Windows setup changes and in there the list of necessary changes. Also make sure that the Windows task manager is replaced by the DR-DOS one. Afterwards you will be able to start Windows as one task of DR-DOS TASKMGR. If TASKMGR is running as a task switcher, Windows will come up in 386 Enhanced Mode; if the DR-DOS multitasker is running, Windows will run in Standard mode only. Having the task manager hotkeys assigned to the same keys, and the DR-DOS TASKMGR assigned as task manager for Windows (SETUP.INI setting), DR-DOS tasks and Windows will be seamlessly integrated in the task menu. There are a few physical limitations: With a bit of tweaking, it should be possible to run multiple Windows 3.1 in Standard mode in different tasks of the TASKMGR, however, as Windows is a VCPI client (and not a DPMI client as the patched issue of Windows for OS/2), Windows will be suspended if you put it in background, so this is merely a task switching mode rather than preemptive multitasking, as usually provided by the DR-DOS multitasker. Well, I haven't tested this myself for a long while now, but at Novell DOS times I was able to run a setup like this, hence it should still apply to DR-DOS. However, please correct me, if you are experiencing difficuties. Hope it helps, Matthias ------------------------------------------------------------------- Matthias Paul, Ubierstrasse 28, D-50321 Bruehl, Germany eMail: Web : http://www.rhrz.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html ------------------------------------------------------------------- Caldera Digital Research Systems/OpenLinux: http://www.caldera.com/