How do you get the "From the Edge:" articles?? Dan
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of A. Razzak Memon Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 9:38 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Rbase and Win2000 Professional - Razzak's Reply At 01:28 PM 10/17/2001 +0100, Steven Hoggan wrote: > >... also RBDOS 6.5++ under w2000 Pro, I'd be extremely grateful... Steven, The following article "From the Edge:" posted on May 15, 2001 might help you! Should you need further assistance, please feel free to ask here. Very Best Regards, Razzak. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- May 15, 2001 ====================================================================== >From the Edge: Running R:BASE 2000 for DOS on Windows 2000 Section: Configuration Chapter: Running R:BASE Your Way! Platform: R:BASE 2000 (ver 6.5) and Higher for DOS Build: 1.839xRT03 and Higher ... ====================================================================== The most important thing to remember is that Windows 2000 is basically a version of Windows NT. For that reason any changes that you had made to your Autoexec.bat and Config.sys will not work. For example, this includes your FILES, BUFFERS, TEMP and TMP settings, not to mention of course, your PATH. These settings need to be stored in the Environment Variables by a user with administrative rights to the machine in question. I'll assume that you have installed R:BASE 2000 (ver 6.5) or higher to the C:\RBTI\RBDOS65 directory. If this is not the case then you will also need to ensure that you are using the correct path. This path should be the directory that includes the RBASE65.EXE. DOS programs in some cases will not allow access to information more than 256 characters into an environment string. To avoid this problem you should make sure that you have R:BASE's information low in the string. That is put R:BASE towards the front of the string. There are also known issues in Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 with VERY long environment variables (this is explained in Microsoft's Knowledge Base in article Q223275). While logged on as an Administrator... 01. Right Click on My Computer. 02. Select Properties. 03. Select the "Advanced" tab. 04. Click the "Environment Variables..." button. 05. In the Lower "System Variables" box select PATH. 06. Click the "Edit..." button. 07. The value of the PATH will appear in the "Variable Value" box in the Pop up Window that will appear. 08. Edit the value to include C:\RBTI\RBDOS65; 09. Click OK. 10. Check that the User Variables include settings for TEMP and TMP. 11. Add FILES and BUFFERS by doing the following: a. Click the "New..." button under the System Variables box b. Type FILES into the Variable Name box c. Type 60 into the Variable Value box d. Click SET e. Repeat for BUFFERS (also set to 60) 12. Click Ok. 13. You may need to reboot. The most important setting is usually the path. If this is not a clean installation of R:BASE 2000 (ver 6.5), in other words, if there are older installations you should be VERY sure that you eliminate all traces of the older version. Mixing different versions of R:BASE for DOS or mixing different versions of R:BASE for Windows can lead to the wrong system files being used. This can lead to R:BASE not loading or corruption of data. As part of moving your application to the new system you will also need to make sure that the application includes the correct references to file locations. For example, if you use the SET SCRATCH command make sure that the directory in question still exists on the new system. (For example, if you are migrating from 95 or 98 your SET SCRATCH might point to C:\WINDOWS\TEMP which doesn't exist, by default, on a Windows NT system). If you are able to start R:BASE itself with no application, then at this point you should be able to set up an Icon to launch your application directly. I will assume for the sake of this that your application is launched by a file called App.DAT. I will also assume that your database and application reside in a directory on R: called RBDATA. When you create the shortcut to your application you should create a shortcut to the R:BASE executable. Once that is created, right click on that and select properties. In the properties you are looking for two things under the Program Tab. The first is the "Cmd Line:". Append the name of your command file to this. In the end it should read something like "C:\RBTI\RBDOS65\RBASE65.EXE App.DAT". The second thing we need to change is the "Working:" this should be the directory that contains your command file. It might read "R:\RBDATA". This will cause R:BASE to start in that directory and run the command file on the target line. If you get a message about not being able to find certain files (such as MSG files) you should check that your path is configured properly (and that the path does not reference other versions of R:BASE). Most systems capable of running Windows 2000 should not have any memory issues with R:BASE however, you can use the Shortcut Memory tab to tweak the settings for R:BASE. Auto should suffice however, if memory errors occur try setting the values to a specific value (as high as possible) and not set to auto. The final major issue when converting to an NT based system is the need to change from COMMAND to CMD. The COMMAND processor is the DOS sub-system on 95 and 98 and is the 16bit Dos emulator on Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. The CMD shell is a full 32bit emulation of DOS on Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. You will need to check that any lines in your application that do something like... ZIP COMMAND.COM /C Some.EXE Should be changed to read... ZIP CMD.EXE /C Some.EXE If you need to support both Windows 95 and Windows 98 as well as NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 you should use something like this to determine which platform you are using. SET VAR vShell = (ENVVAL('ComSpec')) IF vShell CONTAINS 'WinNt' THEN SET VAR vOS = 'NT' ELSE SET VAR vOS = '9x' ENDIF At that point you can query vOS whenever you need to determine which command set to run. In general, anything that runs with COMMAND.COM should run with CMD.EXE. The only difference is the Operating System command "Start". With Windows 95 and 98 there is an actual file called START.EXE. With Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 the START command is built into the shell itself. Because of this you will need to change any lines like so... ZIP START Notepad SomeText.txt To read... ZIP CMD.EXE /C START Notepad Sometext.txt More to come ... Very Best Regards, Razzak. ===================================-============================ R:BASE Developers's Conference: http://www.rbase.com/conference Official R:BASE List Server: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] RBTI Events/Training: http://www.rbase2000.com/events R:DCC Members: http://www.rbase2000.com/rdcc ================================================================ R:BASE, Oterro & R:Tango are registered trademarks of RBTI. ==================================-=============================
