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| May 10 1992
| | #REDIRECT[[OS/2 Version 2.0 Installation]] |
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| By Aaron Roll 416-395-0085
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| A week ago I purchased from a retailer, a copy of OS/2 Ver. 2.0 Upgrade.
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| First of all I was reading the documentation ( which is very dull and
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| confused) specifically the "installation guide". I was reading the manual
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| a few times more and realized that no help is coming from this stuff ( my
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| profession is Computer Systems Analyst and serves as consultant for
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| companies at Toronto area) and decided to install the OS on my computer
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| in the way of trial and error.
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| In the Prefix I would like to say that I do not familiar with the full
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| version of IBM OS/2 Ver 2.0 and may be things are different there, but
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| our issue her is the upgrade version (DOS to OS/2).
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| I would like to add that I was and I am a true believer of the full 32
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| Bit OS for IBM and compatible computers as a definite replacement for DOS
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| OS.
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| I do not like to tell you about the frustration I had trying to figure
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| out how to make the job done ( it takes long long evenings to decide
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| which is the right way to install OS/2 2.0 Upgrade) and instead to jump
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| right away to the process itself.
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| My computer is IBM comp. 386/33, 5 Mb basic and extended memory, 124 Mb
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| Hard drive, 1- 1.44 Mb 3.5 A: Floppy, 1-1.2 Mb 5.25 B: Floppy, UVGA card
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| and monitor, Running DOS 5.0.
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| I decided to choose this configuration for my OS/2 - DOS environment:
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| C: drive as OS/2 partition,
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| D: drive as primary DOS partition
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| E: drive as extended DOS partition.
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| the reason for that will be clearer in the following paragraphs, it is
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| extremely important to have this three main partitions installed.
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| Before proceeding, Make 3.5 1.44 Mb diskette bootable with DOS 5.0 (
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| FORMAT A: /S) and copy to this diskette all the important DOS commands
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| (like FDISK, FORMAT, SYS and so on.
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| I am assuming that the reader familiar with DOS operations and
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| particularly the usage of FDISK , FORMAT and SYS commands. Just to
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| mention: A) by FDISK delete any partition (after backing up every peace
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| of important program and data ) on the hard drive. B) create the desired
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| partitions. C) reboot ( from A: drive with bootable diskette, that you
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| prepared ahead of time ) . D) format the partitions (C: with FORMAT c: /s
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| and D:, E: with FORMAT d: /s, FORMAT e:).
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| I partitioned the hard drive and formatted it as follow:
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| C: drive 50 Mb primary DOS partition and DOS OS installed.
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| D: drive 14 Mb extended DOS partition and (yes,yes !!) DOS OS installed.
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| E: drive 60 Mb extended DOS partition.
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| OS/2 installation Page 2
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| The reason for another DOS OS on drive D: is that the OS/2 Upgrade must
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| have DOS OS installed when it start the installation process and that
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| fine to have it on C: drive. Unfortunately the process of OS/2
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| installation needs to partition the hard drive again if you want OS/2
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| Boot Manager and HPFS (High Performance OS/2 partition) to be installed.
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| Assuming you did that, you have to reboot the computer and start the
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| process again, but OOPS !! the DOS OS deleted by the OS/2 partition and
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| therefor can not come up again unless you have another DOS OS on D:
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| drive, installed by you ahead of time, as I mention above.
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| After all these preparations, now comes ( at last) the time for
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| installing OS/2 2.0 Upgrade on your machine.
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| With OS/2 installation diskette in drive A: (it must be A:- another
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| preparation that you might do prior to install OS/2 Upgrade), reboot the
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| computer (you might get a note on your screen during that process that
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| the program's trial to write to drive A: failed, if that the case choose
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| "return error to program" and proceed. The program will prompt you for
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| disk # 1 and after short time and a few welcome screens you will get to
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| the choice screen where you choose option # 2 "format the hard drive" . (
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| You can choose "proceed installation on drive C:" but then you do not
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| have the choice of booting OS/2 or DOS, you have only on choice : OS/2
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| boot and that it, period).
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| I choose the options as follow:(it is important to follow precisely)
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| NAME STATUS ACCESS SYS TYPE MB
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| ------ startable primary boot manager 1
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| OS/2 bootable C: primary FAT 48
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| DOS bootable D: primary FAT 14
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| ------ none E: logical FAT 60
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| the above represent logical order (my logic) and can be changed. You can
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| put DOS on C: and OS/2 on D: if you prefer. You can choose the default OS
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| that will come up first at regular bootup although it is not so
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| important, Boot Manager gives you the option to choose which operating
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| system will come first at the initial screen during regular bootup
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| process.
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| After choosing the configuration, SAVE and reboot.( remember ??
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| "Install disk " in A:).
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| after inserting disk # 1 you are coming to the same point you left 5
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| minutes ago.
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| This time during disk # 2's reading, you come to a screen gives you the
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| option to proceed or to format the disk ( for HPFS or regular FAT). I
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| prefer naturally the HPFS and choose that option. the program preparing
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| the disk accordingly and proceed afterwards with the installation
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| process, namely: up to disk # 5 the OS OS/2, rebooting again and
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| proceeding with choices for file system and disk # 6 to # 15 plus
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| printers device driver at the end of the installation.
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| OS/2 installation page 3
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| as soon as the OS/2 system comes up at the end of the installation
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| process I recommends to clear the screen off by clicking on the small
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| icon/sign at the upper left hand side of the windows ( do not use the
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| tutorial as recommended by IBM you can come to that later on ).
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| Push the right hand mouse's button and choose Shut down line form the pop
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| up menu, choose O.K. wait for verification and reboot your computer, this
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| time no disk in drive A:.
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| After POST ended Boot manager will come up with its menu, highlight "
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| OS/2 " choice and >ENTER<.
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| Now you can get the tutorial/documentation/help etc.
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| But wait a little bit more, before going documentation, activate PMFDISK
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| command ( open the OS/2 icon double click on setup icon double click on
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| Migrate icon and perform migration for OS/2 programs ( particularly
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| PMFDISK) as of the documentation and on line help. After finishing that
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| double click on Additional OS/2 program and activate PMFDISK program.
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| The hard drive setup appears on the screen as the follow:
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| NAME STATUS ACCESS SYSTYPE MB
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| -------- startable primary boot manager 1
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| OS/2 bootable c: primary HPFS 48
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| DOS bootable primary FAT 14
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| ------- none d: logical FAT 60
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| Pay to your attention that this new arrangement ( of c:; d: drives) have
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| been done automatically by OS/2 and the reason is : OS/2 and DOS are
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| using both the same name for the first drive e.g. C: drive !!!
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| Now Shut Down OS/2 again at the proper way, reboot the computer with the
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| bootable DOS diskette, activate FDISK and first: FORMAT c: /s ( yes c:
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| drive, this time under DOS is deferent drive than c: drive under OS/2.
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| after making c: drive DOS bootable , FORMAT d: and reboot the computer
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| again, this time Boot Manager menu comes up giving you the choice DOS or
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| OS/2 , highlight the DOS option and boot by DOS just to make sure that
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| every thing work properly. Install DOS sub directory on c: drive and
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| windows on d: drive together with all windows application.
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| The reason for small ( DOS ) C: drive and large D: drive comes from the
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| fact that OS/2 as well as DOS are using primary drive C: therefor OS/2
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| is not able to "see" DOS C:, it is reading its own C: drive and DOS D:
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| drive only, so concern OS/2 , DOS C: drive is just a "waist". On the
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| other hand DOS does not " care " where Windows resided.
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| OS/2 installation page 4
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| Some prefix and conclusions
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| Intentionally I installed OS/2 2.0 side by side with DOS/WINDOWS 3.1 on
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| the same computer and the same hard drive that was partitioned
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| accordingly, I wanted to compare the two operating systems by myself and
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| not to get second hand impression.
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| When I purchased OS/2, my initial intention was to replace Windows-DOS
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| base with something that destined to replace DOS and UNIX (which I
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| definitely dislike) in the near future, well , to tell the truth I was
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| disappointed !!!
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| OS/2 is UNSTABLE environment, a short time ( 5 to 15 minutes ) after you
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| are trying to adjust something , anything , with the operating system,
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| everything friezes up without any apparent reason and you have to boot up
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| again. It seems that IBM programmers learn nothing from the educational
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| experience of Windows 3.0 and its UAE (Unrecoverable Application Error )
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| , how comes ?? Windows 3.0 launched 2 years ago !! in our terms it is
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| almost a computer generation that passed by.
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| Maybe the program runs well on IBM native computers, I must presume so,
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| otherwise it does not make any sense to throw this program to the market
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| ( and consider the development and advertisement campaign's costs ! ) But
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| lets talk serious, how many of us are using IBM native computers ?? (
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| except government departments that there resources seems to be
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| surprisingly endless) , the answer is obvious, Just a few. From a lot of
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| sources I hear about the same problem, namely : the computer (IBM
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| compatible) hangs up frequently.
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| I suspect the device drivers supplied by IBM to be the reason for all
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| that and specifically the drivers that managing the relations between the
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| operating system and the computer's BIOSs/ hard drive controllers( of all
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| variety and types). You would expect IBM company to address that problem
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| prior to marketing the program right ? well, wrong as mention before.
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| The guys there just did not check up the right types and amounts of IBM
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| CLONES ( it seems that the IBM guys do not like to think about such
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| androgynous) and did not developed bullet proof program.
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| The documentation for the OS/2 2.0 Upgrade is POOR , confused and lake of
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| basic items to explain and direct the user of the installation steps
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| aside of totally misleading of installation's directions ( at the other
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| hand the on line's context sensitive and the general help is excellent
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| !).
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| OS/2 installation page 5
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| The boot up process is painfully slow , just imagine 10 hang ups a day (
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| YES !! that the reality ) and you have got about an hour a day dealing up
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| with boot ups processes.
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| The program is not intuitive to my taste. for example I was up and
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| running with Windows 3.0 in no time without any need at all for
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| documentation or on line help, not to mention Windows 3.1, OS/2 2.0 is a
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| concept's relative of Windows Namely : Object oriented OS, but the case
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| is not the case when its come to ease of use and being intuitive, you
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| must use the documentation frequently ( sometime a very frustrated
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| process ).
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| Who Said : " DOS better then DOS and WINDOWS better then WINDOWS "?? you
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| know who !! . Sorry guys I am not convinced !! Try WINDOWS 3.1 and see ,
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| you just can not compare the two programs, WINDOWS 3.1 toping OS/2 2.0 by
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| two to three levels ( that not the right article to count the precise
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| differences ).
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| All in all I think Microsoft guys were and are listening to our
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| (customers) problems and desires much better then IBM guys and more
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| important : implementing most of them.
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| IBM company on the other hand improved a lot , its not enough but in the
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| right direction ( after all it is very difficult for that giant to change
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| direction after so many years they ignored us completely).
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| OS/2 ver. 2.0 is very Powerful OS , I do not have any doubt about it ,
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| may be we have to wait for ver 2.1 to get things done properly like we
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| had it with Windows 3.1.
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| OS/2 is not for novices, you have to know what you are doing when
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| installing and operating it.
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| I am supporting some opinions saying that the combination of OS/2 for
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| file server and Windows for end user, might be a good combination in the
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| future provided WINDOWS NT is not going to top OS/2 like WINDOWS 3.1 is
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| doing to OS/2 in the present.
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| This document belong to the FREEWARE concept you can use it in any forum
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| and form you like provided you did not change any thing in its content.
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| Although I believe the above installation process is bullet proof for
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| every body ( about 20 time of repeatedly installations and tenth of hours
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| I spent learning the program, are backing up this statement) I cannot
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| assure success for every body, do it on your own risk( nothing much of it
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| here any way).
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| Aaron Roll
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| 6091 Bathurst St. # 308
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| Willowdale, Ontario
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| M2R-1Z3
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| Tel : 416-395-0085
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