Message-ID: <000201c10420$d4caa740$c008e289@mpaul> From: "Matthias Paul" To: 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 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by delorie.com id UAA30579 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 ; http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html; http://mpaul.drdos.org