NeTraverseTM MergeTM 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® Windows® 95/98 and Millennium Edition operating systems into the Open UNIXTM/UnixWare TM environment, allowing users to access both UNIX and Windows® 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

Introduction

What is Merge?
New features in Merge 5.3
Release History for Merge 5.3

Installation Notes

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

Release Notes

Operational Tips
Known Limitations
Anomalies and Caveats

Supplement to the On-line Help Documentation

Customizable drive labels
Windows 95 Y2K update


Introduction

What is Merge?

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.

New Features in Merge 5.3

NeTraverse Merge 5.3 is a major update to the previous version, SCO Merge 5.1. It provides the following new features:

Release History for Merge 5.3

Changes in 5.3.4

New Functionality

Problems fixed

Changes in 5.3.3

New Functionality

Problems fixed

Changes in 5.3.2

New Functionality

Problems fixed

Initial release 5.3.1

Merge 5.3.1 is the initial release of Merge 5.3.


Installation Notes

System Requirements


Supported Windows Versions

Merge supports the following versions of Windows:

Merge does not support the following:

Merge supports the following Windows language versions:


Win95-Classic Win95-OSR2 Win98-Original Win98-SE WinME
Basque Yes - - - -
Brazilian
Portugese
Yes Yes Yes Yes -
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
Spanish

- Yes - - -
Polish - Yes - Yes -
Portugese 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 - - -


Disk Space Requirements

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.

Licensing requirements

Merge 5.3 requires a license to be installed before it can be used. You use the Open UNIX/UnixWare 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

IMPORTANT: After upgrading to Merge 5.3, you will need to provide new desktop, server and user bump licenses.

Licenses supplied with Merge 5.1 or earlier will not work with Merge 5.3. Following a Merge 5.3 upgrade, you will need to run the Open UNIX/UnixWare License Manager and enter new license data. Also, new user bump licenses will need to be applied using the Open UNIX/UnixWare License Manager. Merge 5.3 upgrade licenses can be purchased from your SCO Group software supplier. 

After installing or changing licenses, the computer must be rebooted.

Installation Procedure

To install Merge from the Optional Services CD:

  1. Log in as root on the UNIX server.

  2. Start the Application Installer.

  3. Select the correct device from which to install (for example, CD-ROM_1).

  4. Click on Update View to see the products that are available to install.

  5. Select the Merge icon and click on Install.

Alternatively, you can install with pkgadd(1M):

  1. Log in as root on the UNIX server.

  2. Mount the CD-ROM drive:

    mount -F cdfs -r /dev/cdrom/* /mnt

  3. Run pkgadd:

    pkgadd -d /mnt merge


Upgrading an Earlier Version

If you are upgrading from an earlier version of SCO Merge, the installation of the new NeTraverse Merge product will cause the old version of SCO Merge to be removed automatically. Removal of a previous version of Merge does not effect your Windows installations, applications and configuration settings. However, to avoid a potential problem with upgrading dynamically loaded kernel drivers, it is recommended that you perform a manual removal of the old version of Merge and relink the kernel before installing the new Merge product.

Use the following procedure to upgrade your Merge installation:

  1. Log in as root on the UNIX server.

  2. Run pkgrm to remove the existing Merge product:

    pkgrm merge

  3. Request a kernel relink on the next reboot of the system:

    /etc/conf/bin/idbuild

  4. Warn all users that you are about to shutdown the system and reboot:

    reboot

  5. Install the new Merge product using the Installation Procedure detailed in the previous section

WARNING: There is an error in SCO Merge 4.1.0 that prevents it from being removed. If you try to remove SCO Merge 4.1.0 it will complain that /usr/merge/log is missing and then fail. To prevent this problem so that you can remove SCO Merge 4.1.0, log in as root and type command:

	mkdir -p /usr/merge/log/save.x
After you do this then it is safe to remove SCO Merge 4.1.0.

If you have already encountered this removal problem, you can still type the above command and do the removal again. Some warnings will be printed (because SCO Merge is partially removed), but the removal will eventually succeed.

Viewing the Documentation

Once you have installed Merge, refer to the documentation which will guide you through the following steps:

A variety of documentation is provided as part of the Merge product:

All the above help documentation is viewable using the SCOhelp browser, however starting with UnixWare 7.1.3, 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 erge 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

Loading the Windows installation files from CD

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.

Removal Procedure

IMPORTANT: Make sure that no-one is running Merge while Merge is being removed.

To remove SCO Merge:

  1. Log in as root on the UNIX server.

  2. Start the Application Installer.

  3. From the lower pane select the Merge application icon, and then click on Remove.

Alternatively, you can remove with pkgrm(1M):

  1. Log in as root on the UNIX server.

  2. Run pkgrm:

    pkgrm merge

Once you have removed the Merge product, 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.


Release Notes

Operational Tips

Known Limitations

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:

In addition, the following features are not available in this version of Merge: 

These features are being considered for future releases of the Merge product.

Anomalies and Caveats

Supplement to the On-line Help Documentation

Customizable drive labels

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:

Windows 95 Y2K update

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.