NeTraverse(TM) Merge(TM) 5.3
Installation and Release Notes
Thank you for choosing to use Merge from NeTraverse (http://www.netraverse.com). The Merge
product integrates the Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 95/98 and Millennium Edition operating systems
into the OpenServer(TM) environment, allowing users
to access both UNIX and Windows(R) applications
simultaneously.
This document provides installation instructions, and release specific
information that is supplemental to the User's Guide and other on-line
help documents contained in the distribution.
Table of Contents
What is Merge?
New features in Merge 5.3
Release History for Merge 5.3
System Requirements
Supported Windows Versions
Disk Space Requirements
Licensing Requirements
Installation Procedure
Upgrading an Earlier Version
Viewing the Documentation
Loading the Windows installation files
from CD
Removal Procedure
Operational Tips
Known Limitations
Anomalies and Caveats
Support for Audio Playback
Customizable drive labels
Networking Support
Windows 95 Y2K update
NeTraverse Merge is an add-on to the UNIX operating system that provides
the capability to run DOS, Windows, and UNIX applications simultaneously
on your PC. With NeTraverse Merge, you install the Microsoft Windows operating
system from the standard CD-ROM installation media and then install and
use off-the-shelf Windows applications in a multiuser, multitasking
environment.
UNIX is the master operating system that controls the physical hardware
and file systems on your PC, while NeTraverse Merge provides a complete
virtual PC environment for the Windows operating systems. Windows applications
execute in this environment as they would on a standard PC, with UNIX providing
the needed protection and resource arbitration underneath. Each user has
their own private installation of Windows to work with, so on multiuser
systems, the way one user uses or mis-uses Windows will not adversely
affect any other users or the underlying UNIX system.
NeTraverse Merge 5.3 is a major update to the previous version, SCO Merge
5.1. It provides the following new features:
- Easy sizing of the Windows window
- Use mouse to resize
The Merge window can conveniently be resized using the mouse pointer
to drag the window frame to the desired size. This feature is supplemental
to earlier methods provided for sizing the window.
- Winsetup "Window Resize".
In winsetup, under "Personal Windows Session Configuration",
the display tab now has a "Window Resize" control and a new option,
"Window Resize". When this option is checked, it activates the "Window
Resize" control that provides two settings: "Automatic" and "Custom".
When "Automatic" is selected, the Merge window size is automatically
set to the next smallest standard size resolution from that of the
real display. And when "Custom" is selected, you control the window
size using either the slider bars (positioned with the mouse or the
keyboard arrow keys), or the "Manual Resize" control.
- Winsetup "Full Screen Resize".
In winsetup, under "Personal Windows Session Configuration",
the display tab now has a "Full Screen Resize" option. When this
option is checked, and you start a "full screen" session with the
fwin command, Windows is resized as needed to completely
fill the screen.
- Command line option for the win command.
A "-g" option can be used to specify the exact resolution to use
when you want to start your Merge session. For example, to specify
a 1000 by 700 window size, you would use the command: win -g 1000x700.
- Allocation of up to 128 Mbytes of Windows memory
The amount of memory that can be allocated to Windows has been increased
from 64Mbytes to 128Mbytes. Also, the amount of available virtual memory
(swap) has been increased from 80Mbytes to a maximum value equivalent
to the amount of available disk space on the partition holding the user's
$HOME/win directory (the default maximum value is one third
of the available disk space).
- Support for Windows Millennium Edition
Support for the full install version of US English Windows Millennium
Edition
- Support for more Windows applications
Since the release of Merge 5.1, the Merge product has been enhanced
to provide support for a broader range of Windows applications. The list
of tested and supported applications now includes many popular applications
such as:
- Microsoft(R) Office XP
- Microsoft Visual FoxPro(R) 7
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0
- Netscape(R) 6.2
- Lotus(R) SmartSuite(R)
- Lotus Freelance(R)
- Adobe(R) Illustrator(R)
9.0
- Adobe Acrobat Reader(R) 5.0
- Adobe PhotoShop(R) 6.0
- Adobe FrameMaker(R) 6.0
- Macromedia(R) Dreamweaver(R) 4.0
- Macromedia Fireworks(R) 4.0
- Norton(R) AntiVirus(R)
2002
- Winamp
- QuickTime
NOTE: While all the above
applications have been tested and run successfully under Merge, some of these
applications can be very demanding of system resources such as processor
time, memory and graphics display. Since these resources are shared
with other applications in the UNIX system, it may be necessary to upgrade
your CPU, memory or graphics card to achieve an acceptable level of
performance.
- Support for more Windows locales
The list of supported Windows national language versions now includes
Greek and Brazilian Portuguese.
- Audio file playback
It is now possible to play audio files using several different audio playback applications. Windows desktop sound bites can also be fully enabled.
- Automatic creation of D: drive for user data
When you install Windows, the "D" drive is automatically created and
provides access to the new UNIX directory $HOME/mydata. This drive
is intended to be the place where the user keeps their documents and
other data files. It provides a convenient place for sharing or moving
files between UNIX and your Windows session, and makes it easy to create
backups of your data. In addition, the directory $HOME/mydata/MyDocuments
is created and the Windows 98 desktop "My Documents" icon takes you directly
to this directory.
- Faster startup time for Windows 98
Merge has been optimized to significantly improve the startup time
of a Windows 98 session.
- Correct CPU identification
In the past, Merge has hidden the true CPU type, reporting instead
that the CPU is a Cyrix 486. Many modern applications demand a Pentium
class processor and these applications have not been able to run under
previous Merge releases. Now that Merge reveals the true identity of
the CPU, these applications run successfully in the Merge environment.
- DHCP support for VNET
Merge sessions configured to use the VNET networking option can now
have the Windows networking configured to take advantage of Dynamic
Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server assigned IP addresses.
- Faster serial device connections
COM ports can now be configured for speeds up to 115,000bps.
- Wheel mouse support
Merge provides the basic scrolling feature expected when rolling the
middle-button wheel provided on many PS/2 mice. This feature simulates
the scrolling action of the wheel using repeated up and down arrow key
sequences.
- Added DocView Functionality.
- Fixed broken start menu problems with some non-English language versions of Windows when using single byte encodings.
- Added support for the ISO8859-15 (Euro) encoding.
- Fixed online guide index problem relating to "Recycle Bin Operation" and "Recycle Bin Operation for Shared Drives."
- Corrected problem with Windows Blue Screens seen with partitions that are attached Read-Only by virtue of a Read-Only attach option or of Unix file permissions. Note that a single, non-fatal, Blue Screen can still be seen with Windows 95 if you attempt to move a file to the Recycle Bin by deleting it on a Read-Only partition. This is a Windows bug which is fixed in Windows 98 and Windows Me.
- Corrected problem wih a GPF in VW95.DRV seen when attempting to install WordPerfect Office 2002 when the display is configured to 24-bit pixels.
- Added audio mixer support (for output channels only.)
- Corrected minor documentation issues.
- Fixed problem with graphics display of some images that are resized with the StretchBlt Windows Display Driver routine.
- Removed system-wide locale settings in winsetup and updated the NLS appendix in the online user's guide.
- Fixed an installwindows script bug that failed to find xdpyinfo if the PATH environment variable was not set to point to the X11 binaries directory.
- Updated support.sh to include win/.boot/info.txt.
- Fixed blue screen errors caused by RealPlayer which is bundled with newer versions of Netscape.
- Support for the Win95 Winsock2 upgrade when using a VNET configured
session.
- Support for very large disk partitions (with blocksizes of 32KB and
greater)
- Fixed free disk space calculation on very large partitions
Merge 5.3.1 is the initial release of Merge 5.3.
- Pentium(TM)-class processor
- System memory requirements are determined by the number of simultaneous
DOS or Windows sessions in use. A single Merge DOS session can be run
on a minimal UNIX configuration in as little as 32MB of RAM, with a further
3MB required for each additional DOS session. A single Merge Windows
session can be run on a UNIX system with just 64MB. But, since individual
Merge Windows sessions can be configured to use between 24MB and 128MB
of system memory, it is important to ensure that the system has sufficient
free memory to accommodate the expected demand of the Windows sessions.
- OpenServer 5.0.6a or later, with the graphical desktop
- Ability to run as root and install a new kernel
- A US English or European language version of Windows 95, 98, or 98
Second Edition installation media
OR: A US English language version of Windows Millennium
Edition installation media
- Merge sound support requires hardware with more capacity than is needed
for a system that is not expected to reproduce sound. Minimum requirements
demand a Pentium-II class processor running no slower than 233MHz. Additionally,
applications reproducing sound with synchronized video may require a Pentium-II
class processor running no slower than 350MHz and and an enhanced performance video card.
Merge supports the following versions of Windows:
- Windows 95 "classic" (a.k.a. "retail")
- Windows 95 OSR2
- Windows 98
- Windows 98 Second Edition
- Windows Me (requires boot floppy)
- Windows 95 to Windows 98 Upgrade CD
NOTE: The Windows 95 to Windows 98 Upgrade CD can be used for
fresh installations of Windows. In order to install Windows from this
CD, you must have a qualifying Windows 95 installation CD. Also, since
the CD is not bootable, you will need a Windows 95 or Windows 98 boot
floppy.
Merge does not support the following:
- Installation from a Windows "Companion" CD
- Installation from any Windows "rescue" CD
- Upgrading existing installations of Windows 95 to Windows 98
- Installation from a Windows 9x upgrade CD other than the one from
Windows 95 to Windows 98
- Installation from a Windows Me upgrade CD
Merge supports the following Windows language versions:
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| |Win95-Classic|Win95-OSR2|Win98-Original|Win98-SE|WinME|
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Basque |Yes |- |- |- |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Brazilian |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |- |
|Portugese | | | | | |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Czech |- |Yes |Yes |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Danish |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Dutch |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|English |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Finnish |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|French |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|German |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Greek |- |Yes |Yes |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Hungarian |- |Yes |- |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Italian |- |Yes |Yes |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Norwegian |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Panamanian|- |Yes |- |- |- |
|Spanish | | | | | |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Polish |- |Yes |- |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Portuguese|Yes |Yes |- |- |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Russian |- |Yes |- |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Slovak |- |Yes |Yes |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Sloveni |- |- |Yes |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Spanish |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Swedish |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |- |
|----------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------+-----|
|Turkish |Yes |Yes |- |- |- |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
- The Merge installation requires approximately 15 MB, mostly
in /opt/K/SCO/Merge.
The above requirements for $HOME are based on default mapping of
the C: drive location to $HOME/win. The winsetup configuration
utility can be used to change this mapping. Alternatively, you can use
symbolic links to map $HOME/win to another location.
Merge 5.3 requires a license to be installed before it can be used. You
use the OpenServer License Manager to install or remove the Merge licenses.
If you do not have a Merge 5.3 license, the following license lets
you use Merge for a free 60-day evaluation period:
License Number: MERGEVALD
License Code: tdrtutfl
License Data: d60;k0;q0;msx7xcz
NOTE: On OpenServer 5.0.6, the OpenServer License Manager displays
"SCO Merge" on the drop down list that appears when selecting the menu
options "License->License Additional Client Connections". It is appropriate
to select "SCO Merge" when adding NeTraverse Merge 5.3 user bumps.
IMPORTANT: When upgrading to Merge 5.3, you will be required to
provide new Merge 5.3 licenses.
Licenses supplied with Merge 5.1 or earlier will not work with Merge 5.3.
During a Merge 5.3 upgrade, you will be prompted to enter new license data.
Merge 5.3 upgrade licenses can be purchased from your SCO software
supplier. New user bump licenses will need to be applied using
the OpenServer License Manager, after the Merge product upgrade has completed.
Once you are satisfied with the new Merge product, the licenses for earlier
versions of Merge can be removed. Those licenses will appear in the license
manager display with the description "Unknown Product Name".
After installing or changing licenses, the computer must be rebooted.
Installation of Merge is performed using the OpenServer Software Manager.
See Chapter 4, "Installing and managing software components" in the SCO
OpenServer Handbook for details.
It is important that no one is running Merge while the product is being
upgraded.
Upgrade of Merge is performed using the OpenServer Software Manager. See
Chapter 4, "Installing and managing software components" in the SCO
OpenServer Handbook for details.
When upgrading from an earlier version of SCO Merge, you will be asked
if you want to remove or save the older version. It is recommended that
you select the option to remove the older version. When you remove an existing
copy of Merge from the system, your Windows installations, applications
and configuration settings remain in place.
Once you have installed Merge, refer to the documentation which will guide
you through the following steps:
- Loading the Windows CD.
- Installing Windows for personal use.
A variety of documentation is provided as part of the Merge product:
- User's Guide
- Troubleshooting Guide
- Manual Pages
All the above help documentation is viewable using the SCOhelp browser,
however starting with OpenServer 5.0.7, the SCOhelp documentation server
has been replaced with a new documentation server named DocView. DocView
supports documentation that would have appeared in SCOhelp by providing
a link to the SCOhelp home page. The Merge online documentation is available
in DocView by following the link named "Documentation in SCOhelp". If
the DocView search index is regenerated after Merge is installed, then
the Merge documentation will be available through DocView's search mechanism
too.
The UNIX man command can be used to display the manual pages.
The Help button in the winsetup window provides access to
all the help documentation.
To display the help documentation from within a
Merge session, use <Shift-F12> to display the menu bar, then choose
the desired topic from the Help menu
Once Merge is installed you need to load the Windows installation files
from a Windows installation CD. For Windows 95 you must also supply a matching
Windows 95 boot floppy (also known as a Windows Startup Disk). If you
have a bootable Windows 98 or Me CD-ROM, you do not need a boot floppy.
If you do not have a bootable Windows 98 or Me CD, you must supply a Windows 98
or Me boot floppy.
The on-line help for this step explains how to create one of these floppy
disks if you do not already have one, or how to use an "image copy" file
of such a floppy if you do not have a floppy drive on your machine.
You must login as root and be running in graphical mode to perform this
operation.
It is important that there must not be anyone using Merge while Merge is
being removed.
Removal of Merge is performed using the OpenServer Software Manager. See
Chapter 4, "Installing and managing software components" in the SCO
OpenServer Handbook for details.
Once you have removed the Merge product with the Software Manager, if you
then wish to remove all the global Windows files and global configuration
files, run the script:
sh /usr/merge/final_remove.sh
Also, each user can remove their private Windows files and private configuration
files located in the following subdirectories under their home directory:
.merge - Configuration file directory.
win - C: drive directory where Windows is installed.
- There are a number of Windows applications that regularly scan your
local Windows drives for files. These applications may be looking for
certain types of files (e.g. Office documents), indexing the drive contents
to speed up search operations, or checking files for viruses. These operations
are perfectly normal but they can occasionally have a noticeable
impact on the performance of the Windows sessions running under Merge,
especially if there are NFS mounted files systems in the search path..
To minimize the impact of these file search operations, it is
strongly recommended that you limit the area of the UNIX file system
exposed by the drive mappings. For example, avoid the temptation to
create a single drive mapping that maps to the root (/) directory and
choose instead to create multiple drive mappings that expose only those
directories that you need to access from the Merge session.. Alternatively,
create a drive mapping to a directory containing symbolic links that
expose only selected areas of the UNIX file system. Be wary of symbolic
links that expose large areas of the UNIX file system or that create
loops in the search path.
- The commands winsetup, win and dos all require
that the DISPLAY environment variable be set properly as is required
by all X client applications.
- Windows may be used within an X window on your desktop, using the
win command, or on a separate virtual console, using the
fwin command. The fwin command starts up a second
X server on a another virtual console screen and has the advantage that
accelerator keys (such as <ALT-TAB>) pass directly to Windows rather
than getting caught by the UNIX window manager. This also makes
it possible to configure the window manager to use different accelerator
keys, thereby allowing the normal ones to pass through to Windows.
- The default memory allocated to Windows 95 is 16MB. This is
adequate for running most Windows applications, including MS Office,
and results in good overall system performance. For Windows 98
first edition the default memory allocation is 20MB, for Second Edition
it is 24MB, and for Windows Me it is 32MB. If your UNIX system has sufficient
memory, you can increase this memory allocation (to a maximum of 128MB)
using the winsetup utility.
-
Once your windows installation is complete, it
is a good idea to make a backup copy of your ~/win directory
(your C: drive). For example, issue the following command under
UNIX:
cd
tar cvf win-backup.tar ./win
Also, it is strongly recommended that you use a separate drive mapping
to hold all your personal files, rather than storing them on the C:
drive. For example, use the D: drive that was automatically created
when you installed Windows. If you do both of these things, it will make
it very easy to reinstall Windows by simply restoring the archive of
your ~/win directory.
- It's important to remember that all the UNIX filesystem permissions
are enforced. You can take advantage of "readonly" and "deny access
to others" permissions on files and directories to control access to parts
of the C: drive. Use of this facility makes it less likely
that important windows files will be accidentally overwritten or corrupted.
Use the UNIX chmod command to change the permissions for "group"
and "other".
- If you have cause to change the IP address of your UNIX network interface,
and you have chosen to configure your session to use the VNET networking
feature, you need to notify the VNET environment of the change by issuing
the following command as root:
killall -HUP vnetd
- If you are experiencing performance problems with video intensive and/or multimedia applications, it is recommended that you configure your X server for 16-bit color operation.
The focus of Merge is to provide UNIX users access to the thousands of
Windows desktop productivity applications that are not currently available
on UNIX. The vast majority of Windows applications simply install and function
normally in the Merge environment. Certain classes of applications, however,
may not be supported due to current limitations:
- Applications that require low level access to filesystem information
may not operate correctly. In some situations, this limitation
can be overcome by installing the application on a native Windows partition
mapped as a drive. Examples of programs that may
not work correctly are: virus scanners, disk defragmenters, disk scanners,
and file repair programs.
- Applications that require direct access to hardware are not supported.
- Applications that install VxDs (virtual device
drivers) may not operate properly.
In addition, the following features are not available in this version
of Merge:
- Multimedia intensive applications (e.g. video capture, video editing)
- Audio CD playback applications
- Winsock 2 - the current Winsock implementation provides Winsock
1.1 support. Use VNET for Winsock 2 support
- USB device access
- Direct device access - currently limited to serial and parallel
port
- Direct X - as used by most games
- DirectDraw - as used by RealPlayer
- Sound recording - only audio playback is currently supported
- CD-ROM recording - writing to CD-R and CD-RW devices is not
supported
- Novell Netware server access - not support over either TCP/IP
or IPX
- VNET over Token Ring - VNET is designed to work only with
Ethernet network cards.
- Windows NT/2000/XP
These features are being considered for future releases of the Merge product.
- X Cut & Paste: For this feature to work correctly, it
may be necessary to have no more than one Merge session displayed per
console screen. Use of X Cut & Paste may also require repeated
attempts in order to successfully place text on the clipboard. Try resetting
the clipboard by cutting and pasting from UNIX to UNIX,
or Windows to Windows. Instructions for configuring X Cut & Paste
are in the Merge User's Guide in Chapter 3 under "Cutting and Pasting."
After exiting your Windows session in which you enabled X Cut &
Paste, the X clipboard can be returned to normal operation by
killing the "clipman" process. This can be achieved as follows:
- Find the process id number of the clipman process using
the following command:
ps -e | grep " clipman$"
NOTE: The above command has a space between the double quote and
the "c", and has the "$" symbol between the "n"
and the double quote.
If there is a clipman process running then this command prints
out something like this:
2134 ttyp2 00:00:00 clipman
- The first number is the process id that you use with the kill
command. For example, if the process id is 2134, use the following
command to kill the process:
kill 2134
- Caps Lock and Num Lock keys: may not work properly when
you use an X display server that handles the Caps Lock and Num Lock
keys in a way that is different to the standard console X server on
your system. For example, the X server on OpenServer and the X server on
Open UNIX manage these functions differently.
The setting MERGE_X_LOCK_KEYS_TOGGLE configures Merge to expect one
style or the other by setting it to "on" or "off". The default setting
is in the file /etc/default/merge, and each user can configure
it by putting this setting in their UNIX environment.
For the OpenServer X server, the setting should be:
MERGE_X_LOCK_KEYS_TOGGLE=on
and for the Open UNIX 8 X server it should
be:
MERGE_X_LOCK_KEYS_TOGGLE=off
- Caps Lock LED: might not reflect the true state of the
Caps Lock setting in some locales. Certain Windows locales require the
user to use the "Shift" key to toggle Caps Lock off. Caps Lock will
be turned off for the Windows session; however, the Caps Lock LED will
not change.
- Hide Menu or Show Menu: Using these menu options
under X might cause the Merge window to creep toward the upper left
corner of the screen with some window managers, including the Open UNIX
8 CDE Desktop window manager (dtwm).
- Adding a Printer: When you create a new printer token under winsetup, you will need to replace the doslp after the -d in the Printer Command field with whatever the correct UNIX spooler name is for the particular printer you are adding.
- Printing: When you install a printer under Windows and select
the option to print a test page, the Merge session will hang for a short
period of time, and then the print request will fail. Just ignore
the failure and click OK when asked if the test page printed
correctly. Try printing again from an application and you should
find that printing proceeds normally. This type of problem is not unique
to Merge. It has also been observed on native Windows systems when printing
to some types of network printers. It is, therefore, strongly recommended
that you do not select the option to print the test page. (Note: in some instances attempting to print the test page will completely hang the Merge session, requiring that the session be killed and restarted.)
- $HOME/win directory on NFS(TM) mounted filesystem:
Having a $HOME/win directory mounted
via an NFS filesystem is not recommended. Problems associated with file
locking may cause Windows to fail to start or to execute incorrectly.
- NFS access to SGI(TM) system: There are problems using
NFS mounted filesystems from SGI systems. One such problem is that some
subdirectories are not visible. NFS mounted filesystem from other types
of NFS server do not exhibit this problem.
- Floppy Disk Drive Access: There are several problems related
to floppy disk drive access:
- Inaccessible floppy disk drives
Some systems may not allow access to the floppy disk drives by
default. If you cannot access the floppy disk then check the permissions
of the devices /dev/fd0 (for the A: drive) and /dev/fd1
(for the B: drive). If these are not the floppy disk drive
device names for your system, you can specify other device names
with a setting in the file /etc/default/merge. For example
if the A: drive is /dev/floppyA and the B: drive
is /dev/floppyB, then put these two lines into /etc/default/merge:
MERGE_ADRIVE_AUTOSENSING=/dev/floppyA
MERGE_BDRIVE_AUTOSENSING=/dev/floppyB
- No floppy disk drives
Some Windows operations require that there be an A: drive,
and can hang or cause long delays if they try to access
a nonexistent drive (this problem is most likely to occur with laptop
machines). If this is becomes a problem, you can redirect A:
drive access to an empty, read-only virtual floppy disk device by
putting the following line in the /etc/default/merge file:
MERGE_ADRIVE_AUTOSENSING=/usr/lib/merge/diskimages/f.dsk
- No second floppy disk drive
If you have the device file /dev/fd1 but no real matching
physical drive, it can cause delays when Windows tries to access
the B: drive. If you experience this problem, simply
remove this device file.
- Mysterious Windows Hangs: Occasionally, you may experience
hang-ups due to problems in Windows or your Windows applications. When
a hang-up occurs, Merge offers an advantage over native Windows by enabling
you to restart your Windows session in just a few seconds. If the problem
persists, please try to verify that the failure does not occur on a
native Windows installation before reporting the problem.
- Recycle Bin: With Windows 98, emptying the Recycle Bin
can result in error messages in certain situations. The error message:
Cannot delete file: File system error (1026).
happens when Windows is trying to create a RECYCLED directory on a
drive where it does not have permission to do so. To fix this, log in
as root and then create a directory called RECYCLED in the directory
where the drive letter is rooted.
Another error message occurs as a result of moving a read-only file
that is not owned by you into the Recycle Bin. This error happens later when you "empty"
the Recycle Bin:
Cannot Delete DCxx: Access is denied
(where 'xx' is a number). Windows fails to delete this file the from
the Recycle Bin, but Windows shows an empty Recycle Bin. To actually
remove the DCxx files, you must use the UNIX rm command to remove
the files.
Also, it is important to make all the RECYCLED directories readable
and writeable only by the users with permissions to write to the directory
containing the RECYCLED directory. You should set the RECYCLED directory
owner and group to be the same as its parent directory, and remove the
read and execute permissions where the users have no write permissions.
For example, if the directory /foo has owner "bin" and group
"sys", and the permissions reported by ls -l are "drwxrwxr-x",
execute the following commands as root:
mkdir /foo/RECYCLED
chown bin /foo/RECYCLED
chgrp sys /foo/RECYCLED
chmod ug+rwx /foo/RECYCLED
chmod o-rwx /foo/RECYCLED
- SOCKS and Proxy Servers: SOCKS, and similar proxy servers,
will not work with the current implementation of Winsock. In order
to use application-specific SOCKS proxy settings in Windows, users should
configure their system to do networking via VNET.
- Norton SystemWorks: When Windows starts with Norton SystemWorks
installed, the following error message is displayed:
Drive Read Error, drive X:
This does not affect the operation of Windows, but an annoying error
message will pop up every three seconds reporting:
An error occurred updating the image data for drive C:
This disk is either missing, full or damaged.
as Norton SystemWorks tries to create an image of the C: drive.
The error message is eliminated by canceling the task that is attempting
to create the image.
Norton SystemWorks contains several components that are meant to be
used with a real Windows disk drive. These components attempt to read
information from the disk Master Boot Record and the partition table.
Since Merge does not permit Windows to have access to the physical Master
Boot Record and the partition table, these components will report
errors until disabled by the user.
- Session Hangs when using fwin: The fwin command invokes
a second X server and this has been found to cause problems on some systems,
particularly laptop machines. Since this is usually found to be caused
by bugs in the X server software, it is recommended that you avoid using
fwin if this problem occurs.
- RealPlayer:If you attempt to play anything that has graphics content, an error message will pop-up reporting that your system does not support Microsoft DirectDraw.
To avoid this problem, it is recommended that when downloading multi-media
content from a Web site, you select the Microsoft Media Player or Apple
QuickTime option if available. Alternatively, you can adjust RealPlayer's video card compatibility performance preference by unchecking the Use Optimized Video Display checkbox. Note that you will need to interrupt any stream RealPlayer tries to play on startup in order to avoid the above mentioned error message long enough to get to this dialog box. Once you change this setting, it becomes permanent and you should not see the error message dialog box again.
- VNET and DHCP: If Windows is configured to obtain an IP address
from a DHCP server, and the DHCP server provides an IP address for a
subnet that is different from that of the UNIX host, it is necessary
to make a configuration change to force VNET to override its attempts
to find a subnet match. To do this, select the network interface that
you want VNET to use, such as eth0, and modify the contents of
the file /etc/default/merge so that the line containing:
MERGE_VNET_IFNAME=auto
is replaced by:
MERGE_VNET_IFNAME=<interface name>
For example, if the network interface for VNET to use is eth0,
modify the line to read as follows:
MERGE_VNET_IFNAME=eth0
You must reboot the system for this change to take effect.
- VNET and MAC address assignment: VNET automatically generates
and assigns a MAC address to the Merge NIC. This MAC address has the
most significant two octets set to the hexadecimal value 1818,
the next 3 octets set to the least significant 3 octets of the UNIX
host IP address, and the least significant octet is set to 00. This
method of generating a MAC address is used to ensure that the MAC address
will be unique in networks that use a DHCP server.
In some situations, such as where the UNIX host IP address is assigned
by a DHCP server, the Merge NIC MAC address can be different each time
the system is rebooted or the configuration of the UNIX networking
is changed. This can cause problems in circumstances where a fixed MAC
address value is preferred, as in the case of applications that have
their licenses tied to the MAC address of the network card.
To alleviate this problem, you can modify the following parameters
in the /etc/default/merge file:
MERGE_VNET_MACRANGE_START=auto
MERGE_VNET_MACRANGE_END=auto
to define the start and end values of the range of values you wish
to have assigned as MAC addresses. In each case, you need to replace
auto with a 4 byte value (8 hexadecimal
digits) to define the range of values that will be used in the least significant
4 octets of the MAC address (the first 2 octets are always set to 1818).
If you set the start and end values to the same value, this will ensure
that your Merge NIC is always assigned the same MAC address. So, for
example, to set the MAC address to always appear as 18181234abcd,
you need to modify these parameters to read as:
MERGE_VNET_MACRANGE_START=1234abcd
MERGE_VNET_MACRANGE_END=1234abcd
You must reboot the system for this change to take effect.
Please note, however, that care must be taken to ensure that no two
installations are configured to use the same MAC address as this can
lead to conflicts in the assignment of IP addresses by DHCP servers.
- Virus Scanners: In general, most virus scanners work without
problems but some do not function correctly, or can cause the Windows
session to crash when certain features are enabled. Specifically, the
features that are likely to cause problems are those that scan memory
or attempt to access the master boot record of the hard drive. It is
recommended that you disable these features in your virus scanning software.
- Netscape 6 download: Problems may be encountered during the
download operation initiated by the Netscape 6 Setup program. The download
will stall at 0% and eventually timeout and report an error. This problem
can be avoided by opting to perform the download operation using the
"HTTP" protocol instead of the "FTP" protocol. When the Netscape 6 Setup
program displays the Download Options window, click on the "Proxy Settings"
button and then select the "Use HTTP for downloading files" option.
- VNET and Compaq Netelligent NIC: Attempting to configure
VNET networking with a Compaq Netelligent Network Interface Controller
will diasble all networking using the interface, both for Merge sessions
and the UNIX operating system.
- Kernel link problems: If the removal of a network card from
the UNIX network configuration leaves the system without a network card,
the kernel will fail to link due to dependencies in
the VNET drivers. The kernel link process reports an error similar to the
following:
undefined first referenced
symbol in file
mdi_EndOfContigSegment /var/opt/K/SCO/link/1.1.1He/etc/conf/pack.d/vnetint/Driver.o
i386ld fatal: Symbol referencing errors. No output written to unix
ERROR: Can not link-edit unix
idbuild: idmkunix had errors.
System build failed
The solution to this problem is to disable the VNET drivers in the
kernel link kit. This is achieved by editing the vnet, vnetd
and vnetint files in /etc/conf/sdevice.d to replace the
"Y" with "N" in the field after the driver name. For example, replace:
vnet Y 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
with:
vnet N 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Then, relink the kernel with the command: /etc/conf/cf.d/link_unix
-y
You must also ensure that any Merge session configured to use VNET
is reconfigured to use Winsock otherwise the Windows session will not
start. Use the win_network -w command to configure a user's Merge
session to use Winsock.
Merge provides limited support for audio playback (sound recording, midi,
volume control and Music CD playback are not supported).
Most Windows based multi-media applications have been shown to work satisfactorily.
Merge sound support requires that you install audio software and hardware supported
by your UNIX Operating System. There is no audio support provided with OpenServer
but there are third party commercial products available. Audio support for Merge
5.3 has been found to perform well with release 3.9.7c or higher of the audio drivers available
from 4Front Technologies (http://www.opensound.com). (Note:
it is necessary to use an ansi terminal, e.g. a character console or scoterm
window, to run the installation script and administration interface provided
by 4Front Technologies for their product. The installation is not done with
custom, nor is the administration done with scoadmin.)
Reproducing sound requires more hardware capacity than is needed for a system that does not have sound support. Please refer to the System Requirements section of this document for details.
The interface used to play audio is the Open Sound System (OSS) API through
the /dev/dsp device. If you are using a different sound driver architecture
such as ALSA, please make sure you have enabled OSS compatibility. The OSS driver installation from 4Front Technologies includes a utility called osstest that may be used to test operation of the audio drivers under UNIX. Before reporting a problem with audio support in a Merge/Windows installation, please be sure to first verify that audio support is functional under UNIX.
After a suitable UNIX based sound driver is installed and proven to be working
for UNIX applications, you enable Merge sound support by adding the following
entry to /etc/default/merge:
MERGE_AUDIO_PLUGIN=/usr/lib/merge/libossplugin.so
Once sound support is enabled, any new Windows installation will have sound
support automatically configured into the Windows environment.
Known limitations are:
- No support for audio CD playback applications.
- No support for sound recording or microphone input.
- Audio and video can become unstable or lose synchronization depending
on the hardware, the drivers used and the workload of your UNIX system. Streaming video will probably fail in most cases, although it will work better at low resolution on very fast, otherwise untasked systems.
- If the sound server cannot open the /dev/dsp
device, Windows applications may become unresponsive, and your Windows
session may terminate.
- The sound server only provides sound output
plugins for /dev/dsp devices (OSS API) at the current time. ALSA
and EsounD are not supported in this release.
- No more than one user at a time on the same system may use a
sound enabled application.
- Due to a limitation of the OSS sound drivers, audio support cannot be enabled on a multiprocessor system.
- Sound drivers are not automatically configured to start when the UNIX system boots. They must be started manually each time UNIX is rebooted, or started by a script added to the /etc/rc2.d directory.
- For increased performance, it is recommended that you quit all other programs when running a multimedia application.
- For best results with the OSS drivers, it is recommended that you disable Plug and Play in the computer's BIOS.
To disable sound, set the environment variable MERGE_AUDIO_PLUGIN=none,
or make this a permanent setting in /etc/default/merge.
The default drive labels reflect the location of the drive mapping in the
UNIX filesystem.
NOTE: The "~" character refers to $HOME.
To customize the drive label do the following: create a directory named
.labeldosdrive in the directory at the root of the drive and in
that directory create an empty file with your chosen name for the drive
label.
Known limitations:
- The drive label cannot be changed using native DOS and Windows tools.
- Windows 95 and some versions of Windows 98 restrict the label to
11 characters.
Merge supports two methods of TCP/IP networking:
- Winsock
This is the networking feature that was available in previous versions
of Merge. With this type of networking, TCP/IP based applications have
their network data re-directed through the UNIX network interface. No
configuration of Windows networking is necessary. You are required, however,
to have a functional UNIX network configuration before Windows applications
can talk to the network. Winsock based applications such as ftp, telnet,
Netscape, Internet Explorer, etc. will function normally. Applications
that do not use Winsock for communications, such as MS Exchange, are
not supported with this type of networking. It is currently "Winsock
1.1 compliant" and provides no support for applications that require
the additional features of Winsock2. If you intend to run such applications,
you must choose the VNET option.
- VNET
VNET stands for "Virtual Networking". With this type of networking,
the Windows session has a "virtual network interface card" which must
be assigned its own IP address. If DHCP is used to allocate IP addresses
on your local network, then you can have DHCP assign this IP address.
With VNET, your Windows session has access to the "Network Neighborhood"
for file browsing and printing. Access to Microsoft Exchange servers
is also supported.
You choose which type of networking configuration to use when you install
Windows.
You can switch the type of networking from Winsock to VNET, and from VNET
to Winsock, using the win_network command. To switch to Winsock
type:
win_network -w
and to switch to VNET type:
win_network -v
NOTE: due to a limitation in the registry editor supplied with Windows
95 "classic", the win_network -w option is not supported with
this release of Windows.
Microsoft's Y2K fix for Windows 95 (w95y2k.exe) is supported although some
extra steps are required to complete the update. For instructions on these
steps refer to the "Win95 Y2K Update" section in the Windows installation
problems topic of the Merge Troubleshooting Guide.