Re: XyWrite & Windows 2000

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from "J. R. Fox"  on Tue, 01 Oct 2002
11:12:37 -0800

Jordan:

> Your organizational scheme makes sense to me -- for a WIN-only box. If there are
> non-WIN OSes thrown into the mix, as I have had for several years, I _don't_ want
> them to see each other or interact.

Why not? I use OS/2 much of the time, with Win2K on the same box. Win2K
(FAT32 bootdrive) can't see my HPFS OS/2 bootdrive (although it knows its
there, and knows that the driveletter is "taken"), and OS/2 can't see my NTFS
drives; but with FAT32.IFS (check out the refreshed version at netlabs.org, on
their ftp server, hard to find but start in the /pub directory) and Logical
Volume Manager (which is FAT32-aware, and since 6/2002 also aware of the wierd
partition types that Windows imposes) and Daniella's drivers (DaniS506.ADD and
DaniDASD.DMD -- her stuff is so good that IBM is actually *recommending* it
over their own stuff), you end up with total transparency. The *fact* is, that
sometimes Windows utils catch problems that OS/2 ignores or, worse, chokes on.
It absolutely makes zero difference whether Windows2K CHKDSK fixes a FAT32
drive, or OS/2 does it. Furthermore, all those warnings about using PMagic on
an LVM volume are sheer baloney, as long as its a compatibility volume. If you
run into trouble, you just wipe LVM with DFSee, then rewrite LVM with the FCU
util on the installation diskettes; if BM won't boot OS/2, you just load the
installation diskettes (modified with the latest LVM, of course), delete BM,
close LVM, restart LVM, reinstall BM, and reboot.

Think of the other fancy things you can do! For example -- just one -- suppose
you want to relocate W2K's PAGEFILE.SYS on the very outer edge of the disk, in
a defragmented fixed-size location -- for maximum speed (i.e. you set the
initial size and the maximum size to the same value, which should be the
"recommended Total paging file size for all drives", in Control
Panel==>System==>Advanced==>Performance Options==>Virtual
memory==>Change==>Select the C: drive==>enter identical Initial size and
Maximum size==>Reboot). Putting PAGEFILE exactly where you want it is bloody
hard to do in W2K, but a piece of cake under OS/2. (Although you could use PM
to do it too: copy PAGEFILE.SYS onto some other drive, then delete it on C:.
Truncate the C: drive (where W2K resides), creating enough Free Space before C:
for PAGEFILE to occupy. That will move all the W2K files deeper into the disk.
Then recapture the free space into C: -- that will enlarge C: but not move any
files. Then copy PAGEFILE into the empty space -- it will stay there forever.
Done. You know what the three most important things to do in FAT32 are, don't
you? Defragment, defragment, and defragment.)

Sure, I have a maintenance OS/2 partition ("drive" is the right word)-- two of
them, in fact, one which is MCP2, the other FP15. But for W2K, who needs a
maintenance partition? For most things all you need is a FAT32-aware Win98
boot diskette.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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