                             JP Software
                        Technical Support Note
         Using 4DOS on a Novell Netware Diskless Workstation

Copyright 1988 - 1992, JP Software Inc., All Rights Reserved.
Published by JP Software Inc., P.O. Box 1470, E. Arlington, MA 02174
usa, (617) 646-3975.  4DOS is a registered trademark of jp software
Inc.  Netware is a trademark of Novell.

This technique is based on contributions from a number of 4DOS users.
It has not been tested by JP Software but several users have found it
to work well.

If you have diskless workstations running Netware that you'd like to
run under 4DOS, and you haven't been able to do so, try this
approach.  Please let us know any feedback you have on the technique
presented here.

The goal of this technique is to ensure that there is NO access to the
boot drive after the network software is loaded.

The term "boot image" refers to files on the A: drive image set up to
boot the workstation.

The term <4DOS path> refers to a 4DOS directory on the network (for
example F:\PUBLIC\4DOS); substitute the appropriate path for your
system.  The <4DOS path> directory should contain at least a copy of
4DOS.COM, 4HELP.EXE, and 4DOS.HLP.  In this description we assume
other files like secondary copies of 4START and 4DOS.INI are stored
there as well.  You can move any of these files to another network
directory if you change the corresponding directive below.

1) Place a copy of 4DOS.COM into the boot image and be sure the SHELL
command in the boot image CONFIG.SYS looks like this:

       SHELL=\4DOS.COM @\4DOS.INI /P

2) Create a boot image 4DOS.INI file if you don't have one.  Add
these lines to the file:

       4StartPath=\
       AutoExecPath=\
       HelpPath=<4dos path>\
       NextINIFile=<4dos path>\4DOS.INI

for example:

       4StartPath=\
       AutoExecPath=\
       HelpPath=F:\PUBLIC\4DOS\
       NextINIFile=F:\PUBLIC\4DOS\4DOS.INI

This forces secondary copies of 4DOS to read the INI file from the
network, and not from the boot drive.  Any directives which you might
normally put in the [Secondary] section of 4DOS.INI should go into
this file (see step 7), and not in the 4DOS.INI file that is part of
the boot image.

3) If you want a 4START for the primary shell, create one and make it
part of the boot image.

4) Rename your boot image AUTOEXEC file to AUTOEXEC.BTM.  4DOS reads
each line of a BAT file separately, and keeping AUTOEXEC as a BAT
file will therefore cause access to the boot image drive after the
network is loaded.

This advice violates the usual rule that TSRs should not be loaded
from a BTM file.  As a result you will have a small "hole" in memory
when AUTOEXEC is done.  Generally such holes waste a small amount of
memory, but cause no other trouble, and users have not reported any
ill effects from this approach.

5) Be sure that in AUTOEXEC.BTM you switch the current drive and
directory to a network drive and directory at some point before the
file terminates, for example with a command like this:

      CDD E:\

Otherwise, the current drive will remain the boot drive and 4DOS will
attempt to access that drive.

Also be sure that you set the COMSPEC variable to the copy of 4DOS on
the network, for example:

      SET COMSPEC=F:\PUBLIC\4DOS\4DOS.COM

If you don't, secondary shells will not work properly from
applications run on the workstation.

6) Create a new boot image AUTOEXEC.BAT file with one line in it
which reads:

       AUTOEXEC.BTM

This transfers control to the AUTOEXEC.BTM file as soon as 4DOS
starts.

7) Create the secondary INI file <4DOS path>\4DOS.INI (the one
referred to in the NextINIFile directive in step 2 above), and put at
least the following line in it:

       4StartPath=<4DOS path>

For example:

      4StartPath=F:\PUBLIC\4DOS\

This forces 4DOS to find 4START and 4EXIT for secondary shells on the
network drive, and prevents it from attempting to look for these
files on the boot drive.  There need not be a 4START or 4EXIT file in
this directory, but if you do want to use 4START or 4EXIT for
secondary shells they must be in the specified network directory.

Any other 4DOS.INI directives for secondary shells should also go
into this file, and not in the 4DOS.INI file that is part of the boot
image.

8) If you wish to swap secondary shells to a network drive add this
line to the secondary 4DOS.INI file:

      SwapReopen=Yes

After these changes are made, generate a boot image and set up the
diskless workstation normally.  4DOS should start and operate
properly when you boot the workstation.

