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 UNIX^TM/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:

• 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® Office XP
  • Microsoft Visual FoxPro® 7
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0
  • Netscape® 6.2
  • Lotus® SmartSuite®
  • Lotus Freelance®
  • Adobe® Illustrator® 9.0
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader® 5.0
  • Adobe PhotoShop® 6.0
  • Adobe FrameMaker® 6.0
  • Macromedia® Dreamweaver® 4.0
  • Macromedia Fireworks® 4.0
  • Norton® AntiVirus® 2002
  • ... and many more.
  
  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.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• 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.
  
  

Release History for Merge 5.3

Changes in 5.3.23

New Functionality

Problems fixed

• Fixed syntax error in installwindows.sh

Changes in 5.3.22

New Functionality

Problems fixed

• Fix for the Dutch 'leesswijzer' Flash application rendering moving pictures incorrectly.
  NOTE: in general terms, this fixes graphics that move from one location to another in Flash animations. It does not fix the more common Flash "flickering" bug, which we are still working on.

Changes in 5.3.21

New Functionality

Problems fixed

Changes in 5.3.20

New Functionality

• Enabled DOS printer configuration in winsetup when configuring Windows session.

Problems fixed

Changes in 5.3.19

New Functionality

Problems fixed

• Fixed problems with Merge X Cut/Paste and its interactions with OpenOffice and XEmacs.
• Minor security fixes.

Changes in 5.3.18

New Functionality

Problems fixed

• Fixed the problem introduced in previous release where doing a "Copy" on an Excel text cell with X Cut & Paste enabled caused xcrt to crash with a segmentation violation.

Changes in 5.3.17

New Functionality

Problems fixed

• Fixed problem where "Internal error - procBlit: can't find bitmap handle XXXX" errors were generated when running Borland Delphi or Delphi Applications.
• Fixed a problem where adding a graphic to the clipboard with X Cut and Paste enabled was causing Windows to exit.

Changes in 5.3.16

New Functionality

Problems fixed

Changes in 5.3.15

New Functionality

Problems fixed

• Fixed erroneous message catalog entries and selection.
• Fixed minor problem in x_msg dealing with displaying newlines.

Changes in 5.3.14

New Functionality

Problems fixed

Changes in 5.3.13

New Functionality

• Added support for Iberian Portuguese Windows 98SE.
• Added full support for TurboTax 2002.
  IMPORTANT NOTE: A directory called $HOME/.merge-DO_NOT_DELETE may be created in the home directory of the user running Windows. As its name implies, please do NOT delete this directory or any of its contents. Doing so may adversely affect some Windows applications and possibly render them unusable.
  IMPORTANT ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE NOTE: This update may cause your Antivirus software (such as Norton Antivirus) to warn that the Master Boot Record has changed the next time a scan is performed. This is normal and expected, do not be alarmed; when asked to proceed, choose an option that either accepts the change or ignores the Master Boot Record altogether. Note that it is recommended that you disable boot record scanning in general.

Problems fixed

• Fixed problem where Merge sessions die with a Signal 11 after installing MSSQL.
• Fix for "MSGWIN cause an invalid page fault in module KERNEL32.DLL at 0177:9ff7d76b."

Changes in 5.3.12

New Functionality

• Added UNIX front-end to REGEDIT: /usr/lib/merge/publicbin/regedit
  Run without arguments (as non-root user) for usage information.

Problems fixed

• Fixed problem with Excel and other apps causing Windows to crash when X cut and paste enabled.
• Corrected problem with multibyte characters most often seen in the big5 (Traditional Chinese) encoding.
• Fixed problems with TurboTax 2002. NOTE: this is a PARTIAL fix only, please do not attempt to install TurboTax under Merge yet. It is possible that a near future build will have full support.

Changes in 5.3.11

New Functionality

Problems fixed

• Fixed VW95.DRV GP fault problem seen with MS Access 2.0 forms containing checkboxes.

Changes in 5.3.10

New Functionality

Problems fixed

• Fixed problem with random VM_DIED errors when a dynamic VxD is loaded and unloaded too many times.
• Fixed the XIO error seen when running Scientific Workplace 4.1 under Merge 5.3.9

Changes in 5.3.9

New Functionality

Problems fixed

• Corrected problem where Windows would not start after installing Norton AntiVirus 2003 or Symantec AV 8 Corporate.

Changes in 5.3.8

New Functionality

Problems fixed

• Fixed VM_DIED errors that can occur when Unix drives are mapped to "high" drive letters.
• Fixed problems with incorrect fonts being selected in winsetup and win menus.

Changes in 5.3.7

New Functionality

Problems fixed

• Fixed broken start menu problems with some non-English language versions of Windows when using single byte encodings.

Changes in 5.3.6

New Functionality

• Added UTF-8 support.

Problems fixed

Changes in 5.3.5

New Functionality

• Added support for the ISO8859-15 (Euro) encoding.

Problems fixed

• 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.

Changes in 5.3.4

New Functionality

Problems fixed

• Corrected default printer 'lp' options.
• Corrected minor documentation issues.
• Fixed problem with graphics display of some images that are resized with the StretchBlt Windows Display Driver routine.

Changes in 5.3.3

New Functionality

Problems fixed

• 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.

Changes in 5.3.2

New Functionality

• Support for very large disk partitions (with blocksizes of 32KB and greater)

Problems fixed

• Fixed free disk space calculation on very large partitions

Initial release 5.3.1

Merge 5.3.1 is the initial release of Merge 5.3.

Installation Notes

System Requirements

• 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 run on a system with minimal UNIX memory requirements, with a further 3MB required for each additional DOS session. A single Merge Windows session, configured to provide Windows with 24MB of memory, can also run on a system with minimal UNIX memory requirements. But individual Merge Windows sessions can be configured to use up to 128MB of system memory so it is important to ensure that the system has sufficient free memory to accommodate the expected demand of the Windows sessions.
  
  
• Open UNIX 8.0.1, UnixWare 7.1.3, or later, with the X 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
  

Supported Windows Versions

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.

• 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:

Disk Space Requirements

• The Merge installation requires approximately 15 MB, mostly in /opt/K/SCO/Merge.
  

• Windows disk space requirements:
  
  

  Windows Version	To load CD in /usr/merge	Per-user space in $HOME
  Windows 95 Classic	40 MB	41 MB
  Windows 95 OSR2	69 MB	93 MB
  Windows 98 First Edition	115 MB	148 MB
  Windows 98 Second Edition	132 MB	195 MB
  Windows Millennium Edition	198 MB	302 MB

  
  If you do not have enough space in your /usr filesystem, use symbolic links to map /usr/merge to another filesystem.

• Windows Temporary Space:
  
  
  • each session of Windows requires 50-100MB of temporary space on $HOME.
    
    
• Typical Windows application filesystem requirements for $HOME using default install options:
  
  

  Office '97	116 MB
  Office 2000	60 MB (over 400 MB complete)
  Office XP Professional	286 MB (577 MB complete)

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

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:

• 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 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

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

.merge   - Configuration file directory.

win      - C: drive directory where Windows is installed.

Release Notes

Operational Tips

• 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".
  
  

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:

• 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: 

• Sound support for audio playback
  
  
• Multimedia intensive applications (e.g. video capture, video editing)
  
  
• Playing audio CDs
  
  
• Winsock 2 - the current Winsock implementation provides Winsock 1.1 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
  
  
• 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
  
  
• Network Neighborhood - the Merge Winsock networking solution does not provide support for Windows file and printer sharing
  
  
• Windows NT/2000/XP
  

Anomalies and Caveats

• Norton Protection/Norton Protected Recycle Bin: These features, primarily found in the Professional editions of recent Symantec/Norton Antivirus/Norton Utilities software, are not supported. The most common symptom when they are enabled is a pop-up window with an "Illegal Operation" error. If you see this dialog during or shortly after booting Windows, please disable these features. Please consult your Symantec/Norton software documentation for information on how to do this.
  
  
• 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:
  
  

  1. 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
             

  2. 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 and UnixWare 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 and UnixWare 7 X servers 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/UnixWare CDE Desktop window manager (dtwm).
  
  
• Printing:  When you install a printer 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.) If you have a PostScript printer, you will need to add the "-T PS" argument to the lp command line. Please refer to Chapter 4 of the Merge User's Guide under "Using WinSetup to configure your environment."

• $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 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.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• 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.
  
  

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:

• 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.

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.