






How to Supercharge OS/2 Warp


by Richard Oliver Kut

CompuServe ID # :  71574,3616

June 24, 1995 Revised September 14, 1995



















Standard Disclaimer:  (Please read this anyway)
 
**** Please do not try any of these tips without following proper backup
precautions.  **** Certain names of products and organizations mentioned in this
article are trademarks, or are patented or copyrighted.  This article has been
written by me purely for the purposes of speeding up OS/2 Warp.  It has not been
commissioned or sanctioned by anyone at IBM, or any other company or
organization.  It has not been written to generate profit of any kind, and may
be freely distributed to anyone, anywhere, so long as this disclaimer
accompanies it.  In no way am I liable for any consequences arising from the use
of the information contained in this file.

================================================================
Scope:

Since the initial release of this file I have received a lot of mail from
different people with concerns and questions about OS/2 in general.  Since I am
of the opinion that every OS/2 user deserves to know as much as he/she wants to
learn about their operating system, and since there are many first-time OS/2
users who will read this file, I am going to broaden the scope of this paper
beyond just performance tuning.  The emphasis will still be on performance, and
as my own knowledge grows, so will this paper, so watch for updates.  Additional
sections, however, will be devoted to subjects that I consider of importance to
all users.  As of today, there will be a new section on how to set up the OS/2
Internet Access Kit to use CompuServe as an Internet service provider.  I am
also including several separate text files from the UniMaint 4.0 software with
the gracious permission of their author, Larry Martin.  These texts deal with
the Desktop and it's weaknesses, and how to protect yourself from a Desktop
crash.  If you have ever had to re-construct your Desktop after spending hours
customizing it, then this information will surely be of interest.  These files
will not be absorbed into this document, but will instead be included in the
TuneWarp.zip file as individual text files so that they may be viewed separately
at any time, and also to preserve the integrity and context of their original
text.  As well, there will now be a section on some of the best freeware and
shareware for OS/2 that I have tested myself.  Obviously a very subjective
review, but it may at least point you in the right direction.  For those with a
bigger budget, or a corporate expense account, I will also list some
exceptionally good commercial software.

Introduction :

I have been using OS/2 Warp daily since November, 1994 and I am hooked.  I have
worked with MacIntosh, DOS, and Windows, and I have never seen power like this.
It has truly unlocked the hidden abilities within my computer, and just when I
thought that it was getting too slow to be useful.  There is, however, one
problem.  OS/2 out of the box is slower than Windows is.  Don't jump down my
throat!  There are perfectly good and valid reasons for this.First and foremost
is the fact that OS/2 offers flexibility, functionality, and power that Windows
users can only dream of.  Also, IBM has chosen to setup Warp in a default state
so that it can be all things to all users.  A sound marketing idea, but you
don't work with your computer quite the same way as the guy (or gal) sitting
next to you.  What if you want to customize your OS/2 computer to reflect the
way you work?  Well, the online books that come with Warp give some hints of
where to start, but don't really get to the heart of it all.  I have been avidly
scouring the bulletin boards for any and all tips that I could get to wring the
last ounce of speed from my computer, and you will be glad to know that I
succeeded.  My OS/2 computers, at home and at work, run circles around any
Windows machine I can find.  So now I am happy.  That is when I realized that
maybe my situation was not unique, and that others might also benefit from the
knowledge that I had found.  This is the result.  I have tried wherever possible
to write all this stuff in a logical, stepwise, and non-technical way, so that
it might be of use to everyone.  All the tricks that I describe herein have been
used on my computer with great success.  If one of these tricks does not work on
your computer, please realize that with the infinite combinations of hardware
and software sometimes things don't work the same from machine to machine.
Essentially, your mileage may vary.  Please don't try changing anything about
your OS/2 setup without a proper backup.  Keeping the above in mind, I hope that
you will find the following pages informative, and I hope that they will prompt
you to probe the mysteries of OS/2 for yourself.  Warp is an amazing piece of
software engineering, with great depth and functionality.  I always delight in
finding out new tricks and short cuts that I can use, and I hope you will too.
On with the show!

Video :

The most important thing about speeding up your existing video card is
resolution.  Essentially, the higher the number of pixels the video card is
asked to display, the more time and computer power will be required.  Therefore,
if you can live with 640 x 480 resolution, then that would be a much better
perfor mance choice than opting for 800 x 600, or higher.  Also, the less
colors in your display palette, the faster your video response time will be.
If you don't need 16.7 million colors, don't use them.  Also related to video in
OS/2 are bitmapped backgrounds.  They may look very pretty on your Desktop, but
they are stealing processing power from your computer.  Save the nice bitmaps
for use as a lock-up screen.  Using color schemes that use colors from the mixed
color palette will take more time to display than colors in the solid palette.
Keep the number of open windows to a minimum.  Minimize or close windows that
are not necessary, and your screen will refresh faster.  Folders that use a
"flowed format" will display their icons faster than the standard "non-grid
format".  This can be changed on the view page of the settings notebook.  Also,
stick to an 8-point normal text font for maximum display speed.  Turning off the
Desktop animation will also improve your video speed.  Do a right-click on the
Desktop to bring up the Desktop menu, and select System Setup.  Find the System
icon and double-click on it.  Now click on the Window tab, and disable the
animation feature.  The one catch-word that everyone seems to connect with
computer video is "screen-saver".  OS/2 has a built-in one that you can activate
on the "Lock-up" page of the Desktop settings notebook.  It has several options,
among them the options for a timed lock-up, and to lock-up your Desktop at
startup.  Both of these are a bad idea from a memory consumption point of view.
Activating these options won't slow down your video processes as much as they
will affect OS/2 memory use.  The timed lock-up fea ture steals working memory
away from OS/2, which will slow down all your processes.  Turning the "lock-up
at startup" feature on will give the computer more program code to crunch
through at boot time.  Not the end of the world, but still a slowdown.
Basically, if you want to lock-up your computer, you are better off doing it
manually from the launchpad, or the pop-up menu.  One last thing that affects
video speed is copying video routines from slow ROM to fast RAM.  This is also
referred to as shadow RAM.  If you are using a machine that has an American
Megatrends Inc.  (AMI) BIOS, like the computer I use, then you can probably
access this feature through your BIOS setup.  On most machines, if you hit the
DEL key at boot-up time, then you will have access to the BIOS setup screens.
Somewhere in there will be references to shadowing video and system ROM.  When
you find these items, make sure to turn them off.  Yes, that's right, I said
OFF.  The simple reason is that OS/2 has built-in mechanisms to do the same
thing as the shadow RAM does.  If you don't turn the BIOS shadow RAM off, then
you are effectively slowing down the computer by asking it to do things twice.
To make matters worse, shadow RAM will take away from the RAM available to OS/2.

Memory :

Getting OS/2 to really fly is mostly about memory, and how you use it.  The more
memory OS/2 has, the happier it is.  That is the Cardinal Rule.  First off, you
must realize that just because you are not running a program, that does not mean
that it is not consuming memory.  Many programs, upon installation, will
register program classes and templates with the Workplace Shell.  This will
increase OS/2 memory consumption across the board.  Some examples are the
Internet Access Kit, and the IBM Works programs.  Therefore, only install
programs that you are going to use.  Also, most programs will add some
statements to your config.sys file, when they are installed.  These statements
might be in the form of set xxx=yyy, or might load some type of program driver.
This driver will sit in memory, occupying valuable resources that OS/2 could put
to better use.  Again, if you don't need it, don't install it.  If you must
install a software that you only use occasionally, you could setup several
different config.sys files.  But that is a topic for another paper, someday.  An
OS/2 feature that consumes several hundred K of memory are the system sounds.
If you can live without all the noise, then find the Sound icon in the
Multimedia folder on your Desktop.  De-select the sound options.  To save even
more memory, do the following:  open an OS/2 window, change to the
\MMOS2\INSTALL directory, type DINSTSND.  Now shut down and reboot.  This will
de-register system sounds from the Workplace Shell and return a few precious K
to the operating systems memory pool.  Not to fear; all of the above is not
permanent.  If you want the noise back, do the following:  open an OS/2 window,
change to the \MMOS2\INSTALL directory, type INSTSND.  Shut down and reboot.
Open the Sound icon in your Multimedia folder and select the sound options.
That's all there is to it.  There are many easy things that you can do to speed
up your computer and regain some memory.  For example, click on the System Setup
icon in the OS/2 System folder.  Now double-click on the System icon.  Go to the
tab that says Input, and disable type-ahead.  Now go to the Printscreen tab and
disable that too.  Go to the Logo tab and click on none.  There; you have just
saved yourself dozens of precious K of memory and sped up your computer in the
bargain.  If you are a bit more adventurous about saving memory, you might want
to reduce the threads parameter in your config.sys file.  This parameter
controls the maximum number of threads that the operating system will create to
run programs.  Remember that many OS/2 programs will ask for more than one
thread to run, so even though you are only running three programs, they might be
consuming fifteen or twenty threads.  You don't want to set this number too low
or you will run into problems once your programs request more threads than you
have made available.  Usually you would want to allocate roughly 50% more
threads than your maximum (just in case).  How do you find out how many threads
you are actually using at the moment?  The easiest way is to go to an OS/2
command prompt and type PSTAT /C >FILE1.  This will create a file called FILE1,
which you can then view by typing E FILE1.  This file will list all running
processes and threads at the moment that you started the pstat command.
Therefore, it would be a good idea to be running all the software you regularly
run, and then run pstat in order to get a more precise number.  In the text file
that pstat created you will find a column called Thread ID.  This is a column
that lists all the thread numbers for each process.  Go through the text file
and add up all these numbers, and that will tell you how many threads you are
using.  Now you can add 50% to that, and change the THREADS= line in your
config.sys accordingly, and then reboot.  Each thread consumes about 512 bytes,
or half a K, of memory.  Depending how much you are able to lower this number
will determine how much memory you save.  Commenting out some unused drivers in
your config.sys file will also speed up your boot times and reduce memory
overhead.By commenting out a line, I mean putting an REM<trailing space> at the
start of a line.  This is usually safer than deleting the line, because at some
time in the future you might need it back.  Some easy ones to start with are
IBM2FLPY.ADD if you aren't using a PS/2, VW32S.SYS if you don't use 32-bit
Windows programs, VEMM.SYS if you don't need expanded memory, VCOM.SYS if you
don't use DOS-based communications software, XDFLOPPY.FLT if you don't create
extended density floppies, and DISKCACHE if you don't use the FAT file system.
If you don't use HPFS, then comment out the line that says IFS=C:\....\HPFS.IFS.
You could also experiment with reducing the BUFFERS=xx line in your config.sys
file.  This line is necessary even in an HPFS machine because it speeds access
to FAT systems, and therefore floppies also, since all floppy disks are FAT
formatted.  I have mine set to BUFFERS=30, and it works great.  If you feel
comfortable navigating around the files on your hard drive, and don't think you
will need the undelete utility, then go ahead and turn it off.  Doing so will
save some precious memory and a lot of program overhead.  Moving, copying, and
deleting files will appear much faster with undelete turned off.  To turn it
off, edit your config.sys file.  Find the line that says SET
DELDIR=C:\DELETE,512; and edit it to read REM SET DELDIR=C:\DELETE,512;.  Now
shut down and reboot.  If you are only running OS/2 software and don't need the
DOS/Windows compatibility, then you can turn them off and recover the 640 K that
DOS normally lives in.  Edit your config.sys file and find the line that says
PROTECTONLY=NO.  Change it to read PROTECTONLY=YES.  Afterwards, you could also
comment out the line that loads DOS.SYS.  As always, reboot after any config.sys
change.  Even if you need DOS/Windows capability, you can still save memory by
tuning.  The config.sys parameter RMSIZE determines how many K of memory are
reserved for the DOS environment.  The default is RMSIZE=640, but we all know
that most programs can live happily in a 500 K environment.  To change it, edit
the line in your config.sys to read RMSIZE=512, and then reboot.  Voila!
Another 128 K for OS/2 and your programs to use.  

Hard Drive :

Your hard drive is an important part of the overall performance of your OS/2
system.  Setting it up properly at the start will yield amazing results.  The
best thing you can do to improve the performance of your existing hard drive is
to format it with the High Performance File System, or HPFS for short.  This
file system replaces the standard File Allocation Table, or FAT, system found on
all DOS computers today.  It has many advantages and improvements over FAT, and
is ideally suited for OS/2.  The only drawback is that HPFS requires between 200
and 400 K of working memory.  Therefore, using HPFS on anything less than a 6
meg machine is counter-productive.  Please note that if your hard drive size is
80 meg or less, that you will not see any measurable performance gain in speed,
but you will still have the benefit of resistance to file fragmentation, better
undelete capability, and a smaller cluster size compared to FAT which will waste
less space on your drive.  The following is the best way that I have found to
setup your hard drive for machines with 4 to 8 meg of RAM.  First, make sure
that you have completely backed up your hard drive.  Then, when installing Warp,
choose the advanced installation.  Select to do an FDISK on your hard drive.
You will create 2 partitions on your drive:  one for the swap file, and one for
your files.  Create a 20 meg partition, at the start of your disk.  Then create
another partition for the remaining space.  Set this last one as the installable
partition.  Now, continue with the installation, re-formatting the drive as
appropriate.  When the install is complete, format your new d:  partition.  To
format your new partition for HPFS you would type FORMAT D:  /FS:HPFS.  Then
edit the SWAPPATH= line in your config.sys file to read SWAPPATH=D:\ 512 16384.
Once you have edited your config.sys file, shut down and reboot.  You should see
a marked speed improvement in swap times.  Don't forget to delete the old
SWAPPER.DAT file in your C:\OS2\SYSTEM directory after you reboot, to reclaim
some disk space.  On my 8 meg HPFS system at home, I set aside 34.5 MB of disk
space for a 32 meg swapfile.  The reason for the 2.5 meg difference is the 512
minimum-space parameter in the swappath= line, and some room for additional
structures unique to the HPFS file system.  This is also why I had you create a
20 meg partition for a 16 meg HPFS swapfile.  One word of caution if you are
re-modelling your hard drive with data already on it.  BACKUP YOUR DATA FIRST!
The FDISK program will demolish all data when you resize a partition.  If you
have the bucks and want to save yourself a lot of headache, take a look at a
product from Power Quest called Partition Magic.  It will let you do stuff in
minutes that would normally take hours, or days.  It will also convert a FAT
drive to HPFS without re-formatting.  If you are running an HPFS formatted
drive, try changing the IFS= line of your config.sys file to read
IFS=C:\OS2\HPFS.IFS /CACHE:1024 /CRECL:32 /AUTOCHECK:C.  The /CACHE:1024
parameter will reserve 1024 K for use by the cache only, so be careful how big
you make this number.  More than 2048 is useless, and less than 512 is equally
useless.  If you have an 8 MB RAM machine, start off with 512 and work your way
up from there.  On an 8 meg machine it will be a balancing act between speeding
up your drive and slowing down OS/2, so keep an eye on how much crunching your
hard disk does, and how long it takes to access frequently used items.
Somewhere in the above mentioned range will be a happy compromise.  The
/CRECL:32 parameter sets the maximum record size for caching.  If most of your
files are about 32 K in size, then setting it to 32 would be ideal.  You can
experiment with this number by adjusting it in 2 K increments, from a minimum of
4 (default) up to a maximum of 64.  Another trick to speed up HPFS systems is to
specify some additional parameters for the CACHE.EXE program, which regulates
all the activity taking place in the cache.  Try adding the following line to
the end of your config.sys file; RUN=C:\OS2\CACHE.EXE /MAXAGE:7500
/DISKIDLE:60000 /BUFFERIDLE:60000.  Okay, now reboot and see if it makes any
difference on your machine.  On my home machine, with it's humble IDE hard drive
controller, my config.sys file is set to run the driver for this type of board.
The line starts with BASEDEV=IBM1S506.ADD.  This type of hard drive controller
is very common, and if you have an older computer this is probably the board you
have too.  One easy way to speed up your controller, and therefore your hard
drive, is to change the line to read BASEDEV=IBM1S506.ADD /A:0 /U:0 /LBA, and
then reboot.  This will enable something called Logical Block Access.  I'm not
sure what it means, but I know that my hard drive seems a lot faster now.

Printing :

Just a few words about printing in OS/2.  If you want to speed up printing, then
edit your config.sys file.  Find the line that says BASEDEV=PRINT01.SYS.  Now
edit it so that it reads BASEDEV=PRINT01.SYS /IRQ.  This dedicates an IRQ number
to the printer, instead of polling for free IRQ numbers, which is much faster.
Also, if you are using your printer to print only one thing at a time, or don't
have a printer, then you can save some memory by disabling the print spooler.
Go into your OS/2 system folder and go to System Setup.  In there you will find
the spooler icon.  Right click on this icon to bring up it's menu, from which
you can disable the spooler function.  To speed up printing a bit, edit your
config.sys file and find the line that says PRINTMONBUFSIZE=134,134,134.  The
134 represents a print buffer in bytes, one each for LPT1 through LPT3.  First
of all, if you are only using one parallel port, usually LPT1, then set the last
two 134 numbers to zero.  Don't delete them because they will default back to
134 bytes.  Not much memory, but I figure every last little bit counts.
Secondly, to speed up printing, change the first 134 to read 2048.

CD-rom drives:

If you want to speed up the response time of your CD-ROM drive, one way is to
make the RAM cache for it a bit bigger.  In your config.sys file, find the line
that looks like IFS=C:\OS2\BOOT\CDFS.IFS and rewrite it at the end to say
IFS=C:\OS2\BOOT\CDFS.IFS /C:4, and then reboot.  What this does is change the
default setting (/C:2) of 128 K RAM cache to 256 K. Having the bigger cache will
hopefully speed up the response of your CD drive.  Note, however, that you are
stealing 128 K of RAM from OS/2, so this might not be the best thing to do on
machines with 8 meg of RAM or less.

Miscellania:

The MAXWAIT= parameter in the config.sys file determines how many seconds a
process will be put on hold before OS/2 will raise it's priority on it's list of
things to do.  To speed things up a bit, you might try changing this number to 3
or 2, and then reboot.  Do not set it lower than 2. This change may speed things
up at the expense of more program overhead.  In some cases, increasing the
number to 4 or 5 might actually help.  Try it out for yourself, since every case
is different.  The IOPL= parameter of the config.sys file apparently gives
certain older devices privileged access to the input/output of OS/2 if they need
it.  This might lead to situations where OS/2 becomes unstable and crashes.
Unless you have an older Laserjet printer, you can probably change this line
from it's default of IOPL=YES to IOPL=NO.  This will make your OS/2 system more
stable and crash-proof.  In some cases you might want to set it to IOPL=FXPRINT,
to use the FaxWorks program as an example, if you have just certain software
that requires privileged IO.  Many people have said that for FaxWorks to run
properly it needs the IOPL parameter set to FXPRINT.  I personally have set
IOPL=NO and it works just fine.  As I said earlier, your mileage may vary.  The
PRIORITY_DISK_IO=YES parameter in your config.sys file will give hard drive
access priority to any program running in the foreground.  What this means is
that while I am doing a download in the background from CompuServe, for example,
and typing this file in the IBM Works word processor in the foreground, the word
processor gets priority to access the hard drive.  In reality, the download
should be getting priority access to the hard drive.  My experience has been
that setting this parameter to NO makes my system multitask more smoothly than
with the default of YES.  Try it out and see.  Many people have told me that
their systems ran more smoothly, and that they had more available RAM, after
they de-registered the IBM Works package from the Work Place Shell.You can try
this yourself by using a CMD file provided with the works program.  At an OS/2
command prompt, change to the IBMWORKS directory.  In this directory are two
related CMD files.  One is named IBMWDESK.CMD, and will register the IBM Works
programs with the WPS.  The other file is called IWDEREG.CMD, and will
de-register all the IBM Works component programs with the WPS.  After
de-registering you will still be able to use the Works programs, but you will
find that their inter-operability will be hampered.  If you use these programs
as stand-alone software, and don't need to use drag-and-drop between them, then
this might be an easy way to speed up your system.  If you decide later on that
this was not a good idea, then you can always reverse the process by running the
IBMWDESK.CMD file, which will restore all the proper links between programs.
Please note that after running either file, that it will be necessary to
shut-down and reboot in order to finalize all the changes that were made.  If
you use Warp Connect, like I do, here is something that I found which sped up my
networking.  When you purchased your network adapter card it probably came with
some kind of configuration utility, since most cards don't use jumpers anymore.
If you have this software, run it to get the 12 digit alpha-numeric network
adapter address.  Write this down and keep it in a safe place.  Now, when you
are installing Peer for OS/2, on one of the notebook pages in the install there
will be a field where you can enter this number.  Doing so with our network
resolved some mysterious crashes we were having, and generally sped things up a
lot.  If an OS/2 program runs into a problem and will not respond, you should
always try the Ctrl-Esc key combination to try and bring up the window list.
Doing this, in many cases, will detect a failed application and give you the
option to terminate it.  Sometimes it might take as long as 1 minute for the
system to respond.  If this fails, try cycling between Ctrl-Esc and Alt-Esc, as
this combination will get a higher priority from the operating system than
Ctrl-Esc will.  If all else fails,try a "warm boot", which is the Ctrl-Alt-Del
key combination (computer version of the Vulcan Neck Pinch <grin>).  OS/2 will
intercept this key combination and try to close as many open files as it can
before actually rebooting.  If you reach over and just flick the reset button on
your PC instead, then you stand a good chance of corrupting data files, or even
worse, corrupting your precious OS2.INI and OS2SYS.INI files.  You will also
have to endure a CHKDSK upon rebooting.  (You should always have a backup of
these INI files, and your Desktop, in case of disaster.  The best way to do this
is to right-click anywhere on your Desktop background to bring up the Desktop
menu.  Select settings and go to the archive tab.  Here you will activate the
"create archive at each system restart" option.  After you have a few copies
archived, you may want to turn this feature off again because it will slow down
your boot-ups and take some space on your hard drive.)  The reason that programs
that were running when you shut down restart when you reboot is because IBM
setup the default OS/2 configuration to do just that, on the assumption that
people always use the same applications on every restart.  You can bypass this
by pressing Left Ctrl/Left Shift/F1 as soon as you see the alarm clock when your
Desktop starts to load.  Keep holding the keys until all the icons have appeared
on the Desktop, and then you can let go.  If you find that you don't like having
your programs restart at every reboot, then you will have to add the line SET
RESTARTOBJECTS=STARTUPFOLDERSONLY,REBOOTONLY to your config.sys file.  Then
reboot for this change to take effect.  This will only restart programs that are
in your startup folder, and only upon rebooting, not when the Desktop resets
itself.  One last tip regards the pop-up menu you see when you do a right-click
with your mouse.  If you know how to move, copy, create a shadow, find,
etcetera, then seeing these options quickly becomes an annoyance.  To get rid of
these redundant items, add the line SET MENUSTYLE=SHORT to your config.sys file
and reboot.

How to Use CompuServe to Get on the Internet:

This is a subject that has received almost no coverage in the press, as far as I
know, and yet is so easy to set up.  Warp itself will bring you almost all the
way there.  The Internet Access Kit, or IAK for short, includes a very powerful
Mosaic-type browser called Web Explorer.  The only other thing you will need are
the Point-to-Point Protocol files.  Warp Connect includes a PPP program, but you
can also get PPP from CompuServe for free.  Just logon to the OS/2 User forum
and download PPP.ZIP.  You will also need to go into the NetLauncher support
forum on CompuServe (GO NLSUPPORT) and download a text file in the "CIS and PPP
for OS/2" section of the forum.  This file describes how to input the proper
logon script to get connected to the web.  Once you have it all setup and can
make all the connections, the first thing you should do is click on the Retrieve
Software Updates icon to download the latest version of Web Explorer.  The
latest version is a lot faster than the one that came in your Warp package, and
IBM is publicly committed to upgrading this product continually.  Therefore,
it's a good idea to click on the Updates icon once in a while.  Once you have
your machine all setup, try this little trick.  Do a right-click on the Web
Explorer icon to bring up the menu, and select Settings.  At the end of the
parameters line add in the parameter -Q, for quick and quiet exit, and -T 8, to
dedicate 8 OS/2 threads to cacheing all the images that we love the web so much
for.  Multi-tasking on the Internet with Warp is something to be seen!  In the
recent past I've pulled stunts like browsing the Web and ftp-ing a file at the
same time through the same connection, or running multiple copies of Web
Explorer to access different parts of the Web all at once.  Web explorer also
supports drag-and-drop, so that you can right-click on an image in Web Explorer
and drag it onto a folder or your Desktop and drop.  You can do the same with an
entire HTML page, but you have to hold down the Ctrl key while dragging.  You
can also use Web Explorer as a presentation tool and graphics file viewer.  Take
a graphics file (ie.  *.GIF, *.JPG) and drop it onto the Web Explorer window to
view it.Pretty powerful stuff, and all this is included free in the Bonus Pack.
Wow!


Some Software I Use Almost Daily:

Here is a list of programs that I have stumbled upon, and consider to be
indispensable for my daily work.  I realize that this is a very subjective thing
to include in what I have tried to make an objective project.  However, many
first-time OS/2 users may not know what is available, and I include this section
in the hope that it may at least point them in the right direction.  Please do
not view this as an endorsement of any one program over another.  I cannot
possibly know about every program that exists for OS/2.  There are quite
literally thousands, not that the Computer Industry Press will ever change their
argument that "Warp is wonderful, but there is no software."  But I digress.

Freeware:

One of the best kept secrets in the OS/2 world, as far as software goes, is what
is commonly referred to as IBM EWS.  This stands for IBM Employee Written
Software.  Apparently, the highly creative folks at IBM are not allowed to
profit from their extra-curricular programming, and all the fruits of their
labor are donated to the public domain.  Translation:  FREEWARE, and lots of it!

- If you want to impress your friends who use Windows, go ahead and download the
IBM EWS WPShell program.  This little gem will make Windows 3.1, or Windows for
Workgroups, look just like Warp's Desktop.  With that silly cloud background on
your Desktop you will be able to fool your friends into thinking it is Windows
95.  Actually, if IBM had written this wonderful software a bit sooner,
Microsoft could have saved themselves a lot of trouble <grin>.  It's hard to
believe that it's free.  - I use the word processor that came in the Warp Bonus
Pack.  It's compatible with Word, WordPerfect, and AmiPro, as well as regular
ASCII text.  I find that it works as well as any of the above mentioned
software, and it's fully 32-bit and multi-threaded so that it's optimized for
OS/2 (and it's free with Warp).  
- For spreadsheets, I use the spreadsheet and charting programs in the Warp 
Bonus Pack.  It can work with Lotus and Excel file formats, and like all the
programs in the Bonus Pack, it supports drag-and-drop as well as object linking.
- The drag and drop support for the Phonebook program (also in the Bonus Pack)
really helps for doing mail merges or form letters.  
- I use the FM2 Utilities from Mark Kimes to quick-format my floppies or delete 
a directory tree, and much more.  
- To compare two text files I use an IBM EWS called Graphical File Comparison, 
or GFC for short.  I can't explain it, you'll just have to download it and try 
it for yourself.  It has been immensely useful in comparing different versions 
of the same file.  
- Since Warp doesn't have a calculator anymore, like version 2.1 used to, I use 
a freeware calculator for the WPS called HPcalc, which imitates the trusty old
Hewlett Packard HP-41C on your Desktop.  
- For my graphic needs I use Lens, a Desktop magnifier.  It's interesting 
and fun. 
- PM Camera is an IBM EWS that will take snapshots of your Desktop, partial
Desktop, or the active window, and then saves it to a BMP file
format.  
- CvS is a virtual Desktop expander, so that you can maintain several virtual
screens full of programs.  
- A must-have freeware is Config Info.  This little gem is a
full-featuredconfig.sys information center, editor, and analyzer.  It has all
sorts of interesting information on the different parts of the config.sys file,
and can analyze it in an attempt to optimize performance. I cannot say that I
personally agree with all of the recommendations it made for my config.sys file,
but it is nonetheless a terrific tool to add to your collection. 
- I also use KBSet for DOS and OS/2 from Jiben Software.  This freeware will let
you set the state of the Num lock, Caps lock, and Scroll lock keys in OS/2 and
also DOS sessions.  
- PM Kill, by James R. Skinner, is a Desktop process killer, that some people
might find useful.  
- For you HPFS folks, FENX2 is an IBM EWS that will undelete files on an HPFS
drive.  
- Floppy copying is made easy with PM DCopy, by Jason R. Shannon.  
- For you engineering types, there is the Unit Conversion Notebook, by Donna
Campanella.  
- I must say that I love XIT, from CodeSmith.  It adds a quick exit button to
every window you open, allowing you to zap a window with one mouse click.  It
sounds trivial, but I am sure you will come to appreciate it very quickly, and
before you know it you will be hooked.  
- Paddy's Change Directory, or PCD, is another timesaver
that lets you type in a portion of a directory name, and then it will jump
there.  If it's a choice of several directories, then it will present you with a
scrollable list, and you can pick where you want to go.  This is a real
time-saver if you have many nested directories, or are just tired of typing.  
- The OS/2 versions of Zip and UnZip, from InfoZip, are indispensable as most
files are distributed in ZIP format these days.  
- Eugene's Icons and Pointers (EUGEICO2.ZIP) are a lot of fun, and I have gotten
so used to my new pointer that I could never go back to the one that comes with
Warp.  
- Newpad is a terrific little program that will let you create multiple
launchpads.

Shareware:

All the files mentioned in this section are shareware.  Please register them if
you will use them on a regular basis.  Without your support these programs will
not continue to exist.

- The best investment I ever made was for the SIO drivers, from Ray Gwinn.
These drivers replace the COM.SYS and VCOM.SYS serial port drivers that come
with Warp.  SIO cured a nagging problem I had in DOS sessions with AutoCAD 12c2
for DOS (my bread and butter) randomly crashing the DOS session.  Since I
installed them I haven't had one crash.  
- For modem communications I use Zap-O-Com, or ZOC for short, which is a 
terrific software with lots of intelligence built-in to automate logons and 
such. 
- When I do a download, it's usually in ZIPped format.  For zipping and 
unzipping I use the InfoZip freeware products (available on every BBS I have 
ever seen) and the WPS frontend, RPF Zip Control, another excellent product.
- PMJPEG is a terrific graphics file viewer/converter for almost all file 
formats you can think of.  
- PMDMatch will let you compare two drives or directories to see if all the 
files match.  It also has built-in functions for moving, copying, and otherwise
managing the files in it's display.  
- DirMaster is a very good file manager.  I don't use it because I prefer the
object-oriented, drag-and-drop approach of the file manager that comes with 
Warp. I have tried it out, however, and it works very well.

Commercially Marketed Software:

These programs are all available through mail-order companies.  I purchased them
from either House of Technology, or OS/2 Professional magazine.  Both companies
have knowledgeable people manning the phones, and offer all kinds of software
that you probably would never find in any computer store.

- The GammaTech Utilities, from SofTouch Systems, are terrific for basic
housekeeping of your hard drive.  They include a great set of FAT and HPFS
tools, as well as disaster recovery tools, and I use them almost daily.  
- To monitor my resources, drives, the number of threads and files usedand
connections, I use a utility which has become indispensable called PM Patrol.
It also includes a program scheduler so you can start backups after regular
hours, for example.  
- To keep my INI files clean as a whistle I use UniMaint, also from SofTouch
Systems.  This software also comes with a program un-installer that will remove
anything from your drive that relates to a given program.  This is also where 
the text files came from that I have included separately in this revision of
TuneWarp.  
- To manage my disk partitions I use a great new product (someone should have
invented this years ago) called Partition Magic, from PowerQuest.  It works in
DOS and OS/2 and does in minutes what used to take hours.  Another amazing
feature of the program is that it can convert an existing FAT partition to HPFS
on the fly without losing data or having to re-format.If you have ever had to
monkey around with partition sizes, or want an easy way to try out my suggestion
in the Hard Disk section of this file, then this product is for you.

Conclusion :

I hope that all of the above tips worked for you.  This has been my first
attempt at doing something for the OS/2 community, and I plan to update this
file from time to time as I learn more tips and tricks.  From the figures that I
have seen, there are now more people using OS/2 than there are using MacIntosh
computers.  That's really something great.  The OS/2 community is finally a
force to be reckoned with, and you can see for yourself by the number of version
1.0 programs coming out specifically for OS/2 that 1995 promises to be a banner
year with all kinds of new developments.  I have been able to garner the above
tips from many diverse sources.  If you want to inform yourself further about
OS/2 and all of it's wonders, there are many channels open to you.  You can read
about OS/2 in OS/2 Professional, OS/2 Magazine, as well as OS/2 Developer
magazine.  CompuServe has several forums specific to OS/2, and OS/2 software
vendors, that you can access for support 24 hours a day.  I have asked for help
there several times, and gotten knowledgeable answers usually in less than 24
hours.  There are many OS/2 specific bulletin boards that you can call for
shareware and other stuff.  Lastly, there is the Internet with it's wealth of
information.  My tip to you would be to check out CompuServe first for whatever
you need.  They have powerful search tools which make almost anything easy to
find, and all the files are virus-free.  With all of those resources you should
be able to satisfy almost all of your OS/2 needs.  Happy Warping!

Richard Oliver Kut 
CompuServe ID #:  71574,3616 June 24, 1995 
Revised September 14, 1995
Text file revised September 28, 1995
