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Software and OS on the PC card

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Help links

Windows

CAB file errors.
Getting PCExchange to work for Windows95 and 98

Windows 98

COMMAND.COM not found, or to help timing problems.
Install fails with "a minimum of 66Mhz is required"
Windows 98 the problems real PC users have. Independent reports.
Windows 98 System Updates By Ben Jos Welbeehm
HTML Version of dirmap.txt on ftp.microsoft.com

Windows 95

COMMAND.COM not found, or to help timing problems.
Timing problems? A small change or addition to the System.ini that can sometimes help.
What version of Windows 95 have you installed?
AMD PC cards
Cyrix PC cards
IBM 486DX4 100 and Windows OSR2.
Windows 95 System Updates By Ben Jos Welbeehm
HTML Version of dirmap.txt on ftp.microsoft.com

Windows 3.11

Other than users not installing drivers for Windows 3.11 correctly no errors to report.

DOS

A20 Line not found
Caldera DOS

Games

Emails from Users

PC Card Games Compatibility Info. Independently maintained list.

Other Software

DK CDROM titles by Michael Carpenter

Emails from Users

Windows

CAB file errors.

If you are getting CAB file errors when installing Windows or any other software from CD's you need to ensure that your internal, external and cache size settings are correct. Run !PCconfig and set then to auto and the size to 128 is the default and should cure the problem.

Getting PCExchange to work for Windows95 and 98

If you have !PCEx running in RISC OS and have run the Apcex.exe off the DOS floppy (Disc 2 of the exchange set) it works and Win32s is not required. The best thing is to copy the contents of the floppy to a directory called Acorn on the working partition then set up a shortcut link to the apcex.exe file.

The easiest way to make a short cut. Use My computer to go to the location of Apcex.exe. Drag the icon to the startup button. The menu should open still dragging move to programs and drop into the location where you want it.

Windows 95/98

COMMAND.COM not found.

A number of people have been unable to install Windows98 on the PC-card as they get a 'COMMAND.COM not found' error message on the first re-boot during installation and are unable to get any further.

Other people have had no problems at all, and the reason for this was a mystery.

We now know what to do to cure the problem, thanks to some sterling work from Pineapple, who managed to get a working version and a not-working version side-by-side, and compared the two to get a fix.

So thanks to Pineapple for the following:

Find the Msdos/sys file found in the root of your partition.
Unlock it so you can make changes to it.
Load it into a text editor such as Edit or Zap. Edit the DoubleBuffer= line in the Options section.
The setting that breaks access is 'DoubleBuffer=2', so change it to look like this, or simply remove it, as it is not required an some CD's work better without it.
[Options]
DoubleBuffer=1
When you have done this set the access back to 'locked' for the file.

Exactly why this problem occurs for some people but not others remains under investigation, so that in future we hope it won't arise at all. However in the meantime this should allow you to get it installed if you do encounter the problem.

Skipping Processor speed check on installation

Windows 98 does a test on installation to see if your CPU is fast enough. This fails on some CPUs even when they are fast enough (eg AMD DX4/100s), and you may want to install it on a slower CPU anyway. To do this you need to run SETUP.EXE with the undocumented option to skip the processor check '/nm'.

SETUP.EXE /nm

Windows 95

What version of Windows 95 have you installed?

Ben Jos Walbeehm who is not a RISC OS user has created an program called Win9xNTVer that distiguishes between 7 different versions of Windows 95.

Timing problems?

A small change or addition to the System.ini that can sometimes help.
This is for Windows 95 only unless you would like to experiment. It seems not to work for Win98 because the cache-ing is different on Win98.

Load the system.ini into a text editor and add or edit the lines shown.

[vcache]
MinFileCache=0
MaxFileCache=2048

AMD PC cards

Download patch for AMD CPU's including PC cards from CJE. This corrects many problems that AMD users have found even though this patch was meant to be for a K9 chip.

Cyrix PC cards

From Microsoft documentation and thanks to G.L.Yetts for bring this to our attention.

"Computers with Cyrix CPU''s"

If you have an Epson 866C or Microcenter Winboolt computer, you may experience periodic general protection faults. To fix this problem:

Copy WB16off.exe from Windows95 Setup Disc1 (or if your product is on CD, from the \Win95 directory) to your Windows directory.
Add the following line to your Autoexec.bat file: C:\windows\wb16off.exe

Although 586 second processor card is of course not specifically mentioned G.L.Yetts having a 586 Cyrix processor driven PC card did the above and found that his Windows95 has not "bombed out" for a week or so.

IBM 486DX4 100 and Windows OSR2.

When a PC card with an IBM 486DX4 100 is used, Product number 84-ACA56-xxxx, problems are encountered with OSR2 version of Windows 95 in that many of the control panel items fail to work correctly. This stops many of the drivers from being loaded. The remedy is to use an early Windows 95 version A or Windows 98.

Windows 3.11

Other than users not installing drivers for Windows 3.11 correctly no errors to report.

DOS

A20 Line not found

If you are experiencing problems in startup related to the A20 Line, The likely cause is PCsleep not being in the !Boot.Choices.Boot.PreDesk.PCsleep. If it is not there then it should be. I do know that some odd upgraded PC cards where the CPU has been changed do not like PCsleep this is due to a CPU test and that the CPU may not be in its list. So if you have an upgraded CPU you may have to remove PCsleep. However this will cause your PC card to continualy be at full power and could over heat your system.

Caldera DOS

This DOS was used to create the Drivers and Bootable floppy when PCPro 3's !MkBootDsc app is run. The found link will take you to their Web site. http://www.caldera.com/
Caldera DR-DOS Free Tryout
Caldera DR-DOS Update Files

Games

Emails from Users

Gareth wrote:

I have the following software that works on my PC Card (Aleph1 586 100Mhz). I am using PC pro version 3 and I use the 256 direct x setting with 32Mb allocated to the PC card.

Flight Simulator 98 (FS95 works as well) - albeit rather slowly when all the graphic options are turned on. It is still playable though.

Warlords III Darklords Rising - works to speed with no problems. Nice turnwise medieval warfare game.

The Star Trek Encyclopedia - nice reference guide for all trekkies. Recommended spec is a P90 but it works on my card. Recommend installing Quick Time version 3 to utilise the direct x mode for video playback.

Hope the above would be of help to anyone looking for software to run on their PC card.

Brian Howlett delighted us with message which contained some of the following text:

I have also a piece of better news to impart. Trivial Pursuit didn't work on my 486-SX33 PC card (although it did on a friend's DX2-66 card) with PC Pro 2.xx. However, with PC Pro 3, it works fine.

Swings and roundabouts, I suppose...

Other Software

Emails from Users

Gareth wrote:

I have the following software that works on my PC Card (Aleph1 586 100Mhz). I am using PC pro version 3 and I use the 256 direct x setting with 32Mb allocated to the PC card.

Recommend installing Quick Time version 3 to utilise the direct x mode for video playback. Encylopaedia 99 Multimedia Edition - An absolutely brilliant purchase. Again QT version 3 is a definite requirement (as well as IE 4). The program uses 2 CD's and covers the complete text of this massive volume set. The interface is responsive, search engine impressive and includes a vast amount of images and audio/video clips. With QT3 the videos are a nice bonus and even work on my humble PC card. This package would of course be even nicer in the 32K/16M direct x mode when Aleph get it sorted.

David Randles wrote in responce to a NG posting on MS Office2000.

I have recently installed Office2000 on Win95 and PCPro 3.03, and everything went fine, the only problem being right clicking on the office assistant gave a menu, but the entries were all blank. It's not a worry for me as I can't stand the assistant and it is the first thing I turn off.

Last Updated: 2005.11.07

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