RE: Why I find Windows 95's "DOS" unsatisfactory.

["Tom Robertson" t1r@xxxxxxxx]

Regarding a replacement for Xtree

PowerDesk 4, which works in Windows does all that Xtree did, in
some cases not as well and in others, better.

You can check it out at:

www.ontrack.com/powerdesk

Tom Robertson

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xywrite@xxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-xywrite@xxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Norman
Bauman
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2000 3:15 PM
To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Why I find Windows 95's "DOS" unsatisfactory.

At 02:32 AM 5/25/00 +1000, Michael Edwards wrote:
>
>   Well, there are commands missing which previous versions
had. "Tree" is
>one I can think of, and I have an idea there are a few others.
You also
used to
>be able to type "help " or "fasthelp "
to get
>information on switches, etc. to use with commands, and you
can't do that
with
>Windows 95's DOS commands.

In Windows 98, at least you can use  /? to get a
help screen.
Unfortunately, you can't type DOS HELP to get a window linking to
all the
DOS commads that are available, or at least I haven't figured out
how to
get such a list.

>   Also, you cause a bit of trouble if you start trying to use
disk
utilities
>such as Norton's or XTree Gold. The inability to use these with
Windows,
even
>when in a DOS window, is to me a severe handicap and has
crippled my computer
>use in the year and a half I've been using Windows. (I've
always depended on
>these for managing my files and subdirectories, and think
Windows Explorer
is a
>pathetic substitute.) (Some of the Norton utilities freeze the
computer;
XTree
>Gold will work, but Windows issues warning messages that put me
off and
make me
>feel it would be dangerous to go ahead.)

Hear! Hear!

I found one good solution for XTree, and that is ZTree
http://ztree.com/,
a semi-authorized (or tolerated or ignored) clone. It's real
shareware,
meaning that it doesn't become disabled after 30 days, and simply
works on
the honor system, so I made sure to register it.

The big thing I lose in Windows 9x, particularly with XyWrite,
is Norton's
Directory Sort. There is a Windows substitute, which however only
works
with 16-bit files and not 32-bit files. If anyone knows how to
sort
directory files in Windows 98, I'd appreciate knowing. A big part
of my
organization used to be to put my XyWrite files into a rational
sequence.

The other thing I lose is ZyIndex for Win 3.1, a text search
program which
had nice filters for XyWrite. It won't install in Win98. I use
dTsearch
instead, which is pretty good, but I get all the XyWrite coding.



-------------------------------------------------------
Norman Bauman
411 W. 54 St. Apt. 2D
New York, NY 10019
(212) 977-3223
http://www.nasw.org/users/nbauman
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