- To force DIR to display your directories in alphabetical order,
with the subdirectories listed first, add the line
SET DIRCMD=/O:GN
to CONFIG.SYS; and, if you wish the same for your DOS command
line sessions, add the same line to AUTOEXEC.BAT. You may also wish
to run DOSKEY to enable the command history feature. (Shutdown and
reboot for changes to CONFIG.SYS to take effect.)
- Hold down SHIFT while resizing text windows to make size changes
permanent.
- If you want to configure your printer port(s) for shared access (so that
DOS programs like LapLink, for example, can use them directly), go to your
printer object, click on it with mouse button two, select Open -> Settings,
select the Output tab, then double click on the port you wish to share.
Check the appropriate box.
- While running a DOS graphics program in a window, use the graphics cut
and paste feature to clip a picture and paste it into the Icon Editor. You
can then quickly and easily create custom icons for your applications.
- To disable the automatic application restart feature, add the line
SET RESTARTOBJECTS=STARTUPFOLDERSONLY
to your CONFIG.SYS. To manually disable automatic application
restart when booting OS/2, hold down the left CTRL, left SHIFT, and F1 keys
simultaneously from the time the mouse pointer appears until icons are
displayed on the desktop.
- If you wish to dispense with the Workplace Shell (and its overhead),
particularly on low memory systems, change the line SET RUNWORKPLACE...
in CONFIG.SYS to read SET RUNWORKPLACE=C:\OS2\CMD.EXE
(replacing C, if necessary, with a different drive letter). In fact
any program with job control (e.g. Enhanced Editor, HyperAccess/5) can be
used as the shell. [Character mode alternatives to the Workplace Shell are
now available from (3.2) Shareware and Freeware
Sources.]
- To implement a small scroll back buffer for your OS/2 Warp command line
windows, use the command MODE CO80,102. This procedure may be
automated by adding /K MODE CO80,102 in the Optional Parameters
section of the OS/2 Window program object settings.
- If you do not want any command line parameters passed to a program
object that you start (for example, if you customize the desktop menu so
that it has an additional option which starts a command line prompt) place a
lone % in the Optional Parameters section of the program object
settings. If you do wish to pass parameters, but you want the extraneous
information that the Workplace Shell passes to the object to be ignored, try
putting && REM % in the Optional Parameters section after the
parameters you wish passed.
- If you want to move an icon a small distance, "grab" it from the edge
nearest the direction you want to move the icon.
- A clever way to manipulate files that are locked when the Workplace
Shell is running (e.g. display drivers) is to add the line CALL=CMD.EXE
at the end of CONFIG.SYS. Then Shutdown and reboot. The system
will restart with an OS/2 Warp command line prompt. Type EXIT to
proceed into the Workplace Shell. Using CALL is also a convenient
way to configure OS/2 Warp's serial ports using the MODE command.
For example:
CALL=C:\OS2\MODE.COM COM2:38400,N,8,1,OCTS=OFF,RTS=ON,BUFFER=ON
configures COM2 for high speed RTS handshaking and buffered I/O.
[Moreover, the MODE command can be used to determine whether your system has
a buffered UART (National Semiconductor 16550A or equivalent), nearly
essential for high speed communications. Use the command:
MODE COMx
(where x is the communications port number) from an OS/2 Warp
command line. If you see anything but "BUFFER = N/A" then you have a
buffered UART for that port.]
You can use either CDDBOC or SHIFTRUN instead of CALL; both utilities are
available from (3.2) Shareware and Freeware
Sources.
Another way, which works well with display drivers, is to copy the new
DLL(s) to its(their) own directory (say, C:\NEW), then place that
directory name first in LIBPATH in CONFIG.SYS. Shutdown
and reboot. OS/2 Warp will use that(those) DLL(s) before it attempts to use
the one(s) located in \OS2\DLL. To switch back to the old driver,
edit CONFIG.SYS and remove C:\NEW from LIBPATH,
then Shutdown and reboot.
- To shutdown without a mouse, press CTRL-ESC, select the Desktop, then
press the spacebar (to deselect any icons, if necessary), SHIFT-F10, and
select Shutdown.
- Selective Install/Uninstall should be used with caution when changing
mouse, multimedia, or display drivers. Verify that proper changes have been
made to CONFIG.SYS.
- If your settings notebooks do not display but are listed in the Window
List, click on the name of the settings notebook in the Window List (brought
up with CTRL-ESC) with mouse button two and select Cascade.
- If your \OS2\*.INI files have grown large, use the CopyINI or
WPSBackup utilities to shrink them. Both are available from (3.2)
Shareware and Freeware Sources.
- To restart the Workplace Shell (without saving desktop settings, perhaps
after an accidental Sort), use a utility such as psPM [available from (3.2)
Shareware and Freeware Sources] to terminate
PMSHELL.
- To get rid of a WPS object that cannot be deleted, try one of the
following:
- Insert a blank diskette in Drive A, click on the stubborn object with
mouse button two, select Move, select the Path page, enter A:\,
press ENTER, then format the diskette;
- Use the WPSTools or Black Hole, available from (3.2)
Shareware and Freeware Sources. (The
WPSTools can also recreate desktop objects that have been lost.)
- To load a device driver into high memory in a particular DOS session
change the DOS_DEVICE setting for the session and add SIZE=0 before the path
and filename for the device driver. For example, the following DOS_DEVICE
entry:
SIZE=0 C:\OS2\MDOS\ANSI.SYS
loads the ANSI.SYS device driver into high memory in that particular
session.
- To reboot the machine from the command line, use:
SETBOOT /IBD:C
Change the last letter (C) if you want to boot from another drive. Disk
buffers will be flushed, but Workplace Shell settings will not be saved.
- The settings notebooks now support drag and drop operations for
assigning icons and for changing menus.
To change the icon for an object, first open the settings notebook (click
on the object with the secondary mouse button, then select Open ->
Settings). Click on the General tab. Then drag any other object to the icon
located on the General page of the settings notebook. The object's icon will
change to match. If you want to restore it to its former state, click on the
Undo button.
To assign actions to menus, open the settings notebook, then click on the
Menu tab. Click on any of the items in the Available menus section (or
Create another). To add an Action, drag the desired program object to the
Actions on menu section.
- To quickly maximize a window, double click on its title bar. To restore
the window to its former size, double click on the title bar again.
- If you have UNDELETE enabled, but you want to delete an
occasional file without the overhead incurred by having UNDELETE
capability, use the /F parameter with the DEL command.
Using this parameter (in either a DOS or OS/2 Window) will bypass the
routine which moves the file(s) to the directory specified by the DELDIR
environment variable. The file(s) is(are) deleted faster, but you will
not be able to undelete it(them). The /N parameter will prevent
prompting ("Are you sure?").
- OS/2 Warp includes the ability to set a power on password. However, if
you have forgotten your password, and you cannot unlock your desktop when
you turn your machine on, try the following. Start OS/2 Warp from a diskette
boot [see (4.4) Starting OS/2 Warp from Diskette]
to get a command line prompt. At the prompt, enter the following commands:
C:
(assuming OS/2 Warp is installed on Drive C; change if necessary)
MAKEINI OS2.INI LOCK.RC
- If you are using a 1024x768 display driver (such as 8514/A), but you do
not want the icons scaled up in size from 32x32 to 40x40, patch the display
driver file (e.g. \OS2\DLL\8514_32.DLL) using DEBUG or a similar
utility. Search for the hexadecimal byte sequence 28 00 28 00 20 00 20 00
and replace the two 28 values with 20. Reboot for the change to take effect,
and be sure to keep a backup copy of the original file.
- To hide your entire desktop, single click on any icon on the desktop,
press CTRL-ESC, then press CTRL-SHIFT-ESC. To return the desktop to normal,
press CTRL-ESC then double click on Desktop.
- If you would like to have a Presentation Manager application start up
minimized, first set up a program object for it by dragging a Program
template from the Templates folder. Then, on the first page of the notebook,
enter the full path and filename of the PM program, but deliberately
misspell it. Click on the arrow in the lower right to turn the page, then
check the Start minimized checkbox. Click on the left arrow to turn the page
back, then correct the misspelling. Fill in any other information, as
desired, then close up the notebook. The program object is now ready to
start your PM application minimized.
- To get approximately 730K free in your DOS sessions, change
VIDEO_MODE_RESTRICTION in the session's settings to CGA (unless your
application requires more than CGA graphics capabilities).
- In a full screen, character mode OS/2 Warp session it is normally
impossible to copy text from the screen to the Clipboard. To get around the
problem, try setting your printer object to hold all print jobs, press the
PrintScreen key while the full screen OS/2 Warp session is active, return to
the printer object and double click on the print job icon for the
PrintScreen, then cut and paste from the editor.