Author Topic: WINOS2 functionality on the Thinkpad X220 or X201i  (Read 8173 times)

Ibrahim Hakeem

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WINOS2 functionality on the Thinkpad X220 or X201i
« on: June 15, 2019, 01:01:08 pm »
Hi all, back at you with yet another question.

Lately I've been curious about trying to get DOS/WINOS2 to work on my Arca OS setups. Unfortunately with my X220 (intel i5) I've never really been able to get WINOS2 to properly work, I was hoping to find out if anyone's had any better luck on an X201 or even an X220. If so, was there any special steps you had to take and is it possible to install it after a completed installation of Arca OS?

Once again, thank you in advance  :)
« Last Edit: June 15, 2019, 01:21:28 pm by Ibrahim Hakeem »

Neil Waldhauer

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Re: WINOS2 functionality on the Thinkpad X220 or X201i
« Reply #1 on: June 15, 2019, 03:15:08 pm »
I have a Thinkpad T540p which runs WinOS2 only after updating ACPI to 3.10 or higher. I understand that ACPI has nothing to do with WinOS2, so I don't understand why that works.
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Roderick Klein

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Re: WINOS2 functionality on the Thinkpad X220 or X201i
« Reply #2 on: June 16, 2019, 12:39:15 am »
Hi all, back at you with yet another question.

Lately I've been curious about trying to get DOS/WINOS2 to work on my Arca OS setups. Unfortunately with my X220 (intel i5) I've never really been able to get WINOS2 to properly work, I was hoping to find out if anyone's had any better luck on an X201 or even an X220. If so, was there any special steps you had to take and is it possible to install it after a completed installation of Arca OS?

Once again, thank you in advance  :)

When you write: "I've never really been able to get WINOS2 to properly work, ",
What is not working ? When you describe "something" is not working you should also describe what is not working.
Otherwhise its kind of guess work us.

Anyway for WIN/OS2 to work you should have todo anything special. In some cases the WIN/OS2 full screen sessions work but the WIN/OS2 seamsless sessions do not function.  This is hard to fix and a limitation of VSVGA.SYS. This is NOT limitation of Panorama, SNAP or GRADD. VSVGA.SYS is used by all of these drivers and this common shared driver is used for DOS and WIN/OS2 support.

Neil is right get the latest ACPI driver from AN (3.23.11 or higher). It does not resolve an ACPI issue but a kernel defect that can cause sometimes full screen sessions to hang.

Roderick Klein


Ibrahim Hakeem

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Re: WINOS2 functionality on the Thinkpad X220 or X201i
« Reply #3 on: June 16, 2019, 09:46:00 am »

When you write: "I've never really been able to get WINOS2 to properly work, ",
What is not working ? When you describe "something" is not working you should also describe what is not working.
Otherwhise its kind of guess work us.

Anyway for WIN/OS2 to work you should have todo anything special. In some cases the WIN/OS2 full screen sessions work but the WIN/OS2 seamsless sessions do not function.  This is hard to fix and a limitation of VSVGA.SYS. This is NOT limitation of Panorama, SNAP or GRADD. VSVGA.SYS is used by all of these drivers and this common shared driver is used for DOS and WIN/OS2 support.

Neil is right get the latest ACPI driver from AN (3.23.11 or higher). It does not resolve an ACPI issue but a kernel defect that can cause sometimes full screen sessions to hang.

Roderick Klein

I apologize for my lack of proper wording here, I was a bit short on time. When I said working, I meant it in the broadest of terms but I should've been more descriptive. To describe the issue I get a blinking cursor in a DOS window, no error codes or lockups, nothing.

I'll hopefully give this solution a shot when I'm back at my desk, here's to hoping it resolves the issue at hand :)

Roderick Klein

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Re: WINOS2 functionality on the Thinkpad X220 or X201i
« Reply #4 on: June 16, 2019, 09:54:37 am »
The more information you provide the better! SInce we can not see your screen.  Since you mention the DOS window try the following:

Modify the VSVGA.SYS line in CONFIG.SYS to include the following parameter:

DEVICE=N:\OS2\MDOS\VSVGA.SYS /int10textgrfxsafe

With the above change, it may be necessary to append the following to AUTOEXEC.BAT (located either in the root directory of the boot volume or where specified for the DOS session object):

mode co80
 cls

Another option, when full screen sessions work but windowed ones do not, is to open a full screen session first, and then press Alt-Home to switch it to a windowed session (this only works for DOS sessions, not OS/2 full screen and windowed sessions).

But running the latest ACPI will not hurt at all!

Roderick

Ibrahim Hakeem

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Re: WINOS2 functionality on the Thinkpad X220 or X201i
« Reply #5 on: June 26, 2019, 04:44:32 pm »
Apologies for the late response all, life got the best of me.

After updating the ACPI and following Roderick's advice on Config.sys, my system's back up to proper scratch again :)

Thank you all for putting up with my foolery once again  ;D

Mike Kölling

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Re: WINOS2 functionality on the Thinkpad X220 or X201i
« Reply #6 on: June 26, 2019, 09:36:21 pm »
Hi, I have an X200 and not sure how different the system is to the X201i or X220. However WinOS2 and DOS-Boxes are running without any problem.
FYI: I have an eCS2.1 (German) running with all the updates from AN including YUM/RPM (ANPM).
Greetings from Potsdam, Germany
Mike

Valery Sedletski

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Re: WINOS2 functionality on the Thinkpad X220 or X201i
« Reply #7 on: July 07, 2019, 06:51:05 am »
2Mike Koelling: X200 is a Core2Duo system. I have X61T, which is CoreDuo too, and DOS / WinOS/2 works fine.
But on another laptop, T420, which is Core i5, it does not work, Symptoms are the same: Black DOS window
with a blinking cursor. Fullscreen DOS session does not work too. Adding lines to config.sys and autoexec.bat
(as Roderick suggested) does not help too. Installing ACPI.PSD versions 3.23.1 and 3.23.5 does not help too.
The same thing is with my father's Toshiba Core i3 laptop. It seems, the problem is with Core i3/i5/i7. Older
Core2 Duo machines work fine.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2019, 06:53:30 am by Valery Sedletski »

Neil Waldhauer

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Re: WINOS2 functionality on the Thinkpad X220 or X201i
« Reply #8 on: July 07, 2019, 03:47:12 pm »
The needed change is apparently in ACPI 3.23.10 or higher. I did have this problem with ACPI 3.23.9 and lower on my T540p. The same is true for T450s. Even if you are not shopping for a Blonde Guy laptop, you can read about laptop issues I have encountered here.

http://www.blondeguy.com/computer/LaptopsForSale.html
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Valery Sedletski

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Re: WINOS2 functionality on the Thinkpad X220 or X201i
« Reply #9 on: July 07, 2019, 07:04:46 pm »
2Blonde Guy: Ah, starting at 3.23.10. I thought, 3.10, which is the very old version. I wonder why ACPI helps for VDM. Maybe, that's
because of a patch applied to the kernel by ACPI.PSD?

Sigurd Fastenrath

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Re: WINOS2 functionality on the Thinkpad X220 or X201i
« Reply #10 on: July 08, 2019, 10:46:22 am »
FWIW: I can confirm that this is NOT working on a Thinkpad 25 (aka a special Version of the T470). CPU is Intel core i7 7th Generation. Tested up to ACPI 3.11. As far as I remember the problem is with VSVGA.SYS or/and VVGA.SYS.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2019, 11:14:29 am by Sigurd Fastenrath »