Answers from e-Zine!

elcome back to "Answers from e-Zine!", your source for answers to all your OS/2 questions! In each issue we bring you tips, tricks, questions and answers from our readers and contributors. If you've got a question or tip you would like to share with us, send it in!

Q -- I purchased a new hard drive and I'm having difficulty getting it working right with OS/2. I found that adding a /V to the IBM1S506.ADD Line in my CONFIG.SYS file like this:

     BASEDEV=IBM1S506.ADD /V

causes the drive geometry and details of drive controller to be printed during boot time. However, the screen is quickly blanked and the information is gone. How can I get OS/2 to pause during bootup?

A -- You need the PAUSE.SYS driver available at the IBM Device Driver Pak Online site. Download the file, run it (it's a self-extracting .EXE file), and move PAUSE.SYS to the root directory of your boot drive. Add the following to your CONFIG.SYS file:

    device=\pause.sys /w:NNN

where:

    NNN = seconds to wait (default = 30 seconds)

You can press Enter to end the pause at any time. Note though that you will have to write down any information displayed on-screen by hand. There is no facility to save it to OS/2's clipboard, or to a file.

- OS/2 e-Zine! Staff

Q -- I have OS/2, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 all installed on separate partitions with Boot Manager used to select from them when I turn my system on. Currently, Boot Manager always defaults to Windows 3.1. I would like to set it up so Boot Manager defaults to the last partition that was booted from. That way, if I reboot but get distracted, my machine doesn't always go to the C: drive. Is there some way to do this?

A -- First make sure you have a working set of OS/2 boot disks. You can use the "Create Utility Diskettes" object in the "System Setup" folder (found in your "OS/2 System" folder) to create them.

Now, run OS/2's FDISK (either type FDISK or FDISKPM from a command prompt, or right click on the Drives object and select "Create partition..."), highlight the Boot Manager line in the display and click "Options->Delete partition..." (from FDISKPM; press Enter and select "Delete partition" with the cursor keys from FDISK) to delete Boot Manager.

Caution: make sure you have the Boot Manager line highlighted!

Next, set the first primary partition on your first hard disk to "startable". To do this, highlight the appropriate line, click "Options" (in FDISKPM; press Enter in FDISK) and select "Make startable".

Close FDISK (or FDISKPM) and shut down OS/2. Now, if the first primary partition on your first hard disk is not an OS/2 partition (for example, if your C: drive is a Windows partition) use your OS/2 boot disks to reboot your machine. Insert Disk 3 (the "Utilities" disk) and run FDISK. Highlight the free space where Boot Manager previously was, press Enter, and select "Install Boot Manager". Add all the partitions which you would like to be listed at boot time to Boot Manager by highlighting each one, pressing Enter and selecting "Add to Boot Manager menu...". Do not use "Set startup values..." to set any default boot partition.

The first time you reboot, Boot Manager will default to the first partition on the first drive. However, if you select another partition and boot normally, the next time you reboot, Boot Manager will default to that partition. Select another partition during a subsequent boot and Boot Manager will begin defaulting to that partition.

- OS/2 e-Zine! Staff

Q -- I was surfing the 'net the other day with Netscape Navigator for OS/2 and found a link to a file that I wanted to download. However, this file had a .DLL extension and when I clicked on it all I got was an almost blank page with a few characters at the top. How can I download this file?

A -- When Navigator tries to follow a link to a DLL file, it gets a bit confused. Since it doesn't realize these types of files are most likely meant to be downloaded, it tries to display them in the main browser window. This obviously isn't very useful.

A quick way to save them to your hard disk instead of viewing them with Navigator for OS/2 is to click the link while holding down the Shift key, then use the dialog which pops up to select a directory in which to save the file. That should do the trick.

A more permanent solution is to Click "Options->General Preferences..." and select the "Helpers" tab. Click the "Create New Type..." button and enter the following in the entry dialog:

Mime Type:	application
Mime SubType:	dll

Now click "OK". Highlight the new "application/dll" line in the list of "File Types", then click in the "File Extensions:" entry field. Enter "dll" and click "Save to Disk" (assuming you always want to save these files to disk). Click the "OK" button at the bottom of the window and you're finished. Now clicking on links to DLLs should always bring up a "save to..." dialog.

- OS/2 e-Zine! Staff

Tip -- Sometimes you may find yourself experiencing error messages at boot time that are not critical but will not go away. If these error messages require you to press Enter to continue with the boot process they can be annoying since they mean you can not boot your machine and walk away. To get around this, you can add the following line to your CONFIG.SYS file:

     PAUSEONERROR=NO

Now the error message will be displayed, but the "Press Enter to continue..." message will not -- and the machine will not pause for input. However, a word of caution: adding this line will mean that if a new error occurs at some later date, your computer won't stop and wait for you to notice any error message it displays.

- OS/2 e-Zine! Staff

That's it for this month. If you have a tip or question that you don't see covered here, don't forget to send it in!

Copyright © 1998 - Falcon Networking

ISSN 1203-5696