Installing and Properly Configuring Q&A to Run Problem-Free in Today's Windows Operating Systems Note: We offer a videotape of Bill Halpern's comprehensive 1½-hour presentation at the International Q&A Users Conference 2001 where he demonstrates in detail ALL the setup and configuration requirements for successfully installing and running Q&A in all the Windows operating systems from Windows 95/98 through Windows ME and Windows 2000/XP. This VHS videotape is available as a part of the complete Q&A Users Conference 2001 videotape set. See Q&A Conference Videos.
Question: We’ve been trying to install Q&A for DOS on a new Pentium PC running Windows. When we start Q&A, we receive various error messages. Since we have many years invested in Q&A, we must find a solution to this problem. We’ve called tech support at Symantec, Compaq, Microsoft and Intel, but nobody has any idea where the problem is. Answer: Lately, many Q&A users have experienced some variation of the problem you’ve seen, so let’s cover some old ground concerning installations involving Q&A for DOS on Pentium PCs running Windows 95/98. (For issues involved in installing Q&A for DOS in Windows 2000 see www.pcta-usa.com/win2000.htm or order the May 2000 issue of The Quick Answer. For issues involved in installing Q&A in Windows ME, see below.
DOS and Windows 3.x programs—as well as most 16-bit programs that claim to be Windows 95/98-compatible—won’t run properly from a hard drive partition that’s larger than 1.88G. (That could be anywhere from 1.8G to 2G depending on how you measure a gigabyte). If the computer manufacturer didn’t supply your PC with a 2G partition, you can use a program called Partition Magic* (800-379-2566, http://www.powerquest.com) to quickly and safely create a 2G partition on any size hard drive without destroying any data already on the hard drive. *As of October 1998, the Partition Magic 4.0 upgrade can repartition hard drives larger than 8G. The earlier version was limited to hard drives under 8G and could truncate a larger drive. For an altogether different approach to getting Q&A to run from a "too-large" hard drive partition—a solution that doesn't require repartitioning the hard drive—see Lesspace.com on the Free Downloads page. See also the "Give Me Space" tip on page 10 of the August 1998 Quick Answer. Most newer PCs come with Windows 95 or 98 preinstalled. The best way to install Q&A on such a system is to restart the PC in MS-DOS mode (one of the options on Windows Start / Shut Down menu), and install Q&A as you normally would. Then, restart Windows (enter Win at the DOS prompt) and create your Desktop Q&A Shortcut. To create a Q&A Shortcut, click the right mouse button on an empty space on the Windows desktop. A small menu will appear. Click New, then click Shortcut. For the Command Line, click Browse and navigate to the directory where you installed Q&A. Select the QA.COM file and click Open. Click Next, and type in a name for the shortcut, such as Q&A DOS 5.0. Click Finish.lesspace c:\qa\qa.com lesspace /U This way, Windows will start Lesspace.com, start Q&A, then remove Lesspace.com from memory when you quit Q&A. Substitute your own path to Q&A.) The Shortcut should appear on the desktop with a default MS-DOS icon. To change this to the Q&A icon, right-click on the icon and select Properties from the pop-up menu. Click on the Program tab, and click on Change Icon. Click Browse, navigate to your Q&A directory. Select then open the QA.ICO file, then click OK. While you're in your Q&A Shortcut's Properties, make the following changes: On the Program tab:Comd Line: C:\QA5\QA.COM (this should already show your correct path) Close on exit (check this box) On the Memory tab: Conventional = Auto Initial Environment = Auto Expanded Memory = 1024 Extended Memory = 1024 MS-DOS Memory = Auto On the Misc tab: No Screen saver (unchecked) No Fast Paste (unchecked) The Expanded memory is useful to Q&A 4.0 for DOS and crucial to Q&A 5.0 for DOS. If an Expanded memory option doesn’t appear in the Properties / Memory tab on your PC, add the following lines to your CONFIG.SYS file, reboot the machine, and everything should be fine: DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS Q&A 5.0 is sensitive to machine type and processor speed (Q&A 4.0 is not) and will have trouble with a Pentium II processor running faster than 180MHz (or a Pentium III) unless you install the Q&A SpeedFix 1.0 patch. If you’re using Q&A 4.0, you don’t need to be concerned with processor speed. If you have a "plain" Pentium (not a Pentium II or MMX) running at up to 233MHz, both Q&A 4.0 and 5.0 should run just fine on it without having to install the patch. This question and answer appears in the @Help column (edited by Gordon Meigs and Bill Halpern) of the March 1998 issue of The Quick Answer, revised here to include the Q&A SpeedFix Patch that became available in late July 1998, references to Lesspace.com, the update on PartitionMagic 4.0, creating a Q&A Desktop Shortcut, references to Windows 98 and Windows 2000, and the bit about not being able to get Expanded memory.Q&A and Windows Me—Still Going! (From the October 2000 issue of The Quick Answer) Well, once again we got caught up in the You-Must-Install-This-New-Operating-System frenzy from Microsoft. Actually, the real reason was that Q&A users have been calling and emailing us since the day Windows Me (Millennium Edition) was released with that same old question: "Will Q&A run in it?" We proceeded with the installation with trepidation because Microsoft had announced that with this edition Windows would no longer support DOS or DOS programs. We "sacrificed" two computers—a Compaq notebook and a Compaq desktop. Both had Windows 98 SE installed, so we installed the special upgrade version of Windows Me. The title makes it obvious that we had some degree of success. How much? It depends on your hardware and point of view. But if I had to chose between Windows Me and Windows 2000 for business use, Windows 2000 would be the hands-down winner. Windows Me, by design, is an operating system for the novice user, with emphasis on home-networking, internet, and picture editing. It attempts to shield you from the complexities of setup and computing but in doing so makes some things very difficult (such as drive mapping) to accomplish. But, enough of that. Here’s the bottom line on what we found:
* Requires pre-partitioning the installation drive if it’s larger than 2G. ** On drives larger than 2G, requires pre-partitioning of drive for installation or files must be copied over to new computer (not installed) and Lesspace used. *** Requires Lesspace for drives larger than 2G; you might have problems getting Expanded memory on certain notebooks (such as the Compaq we tested). **** For running (not installation) requires Lesspace for drives larger than 2G. With Windows Me you cannot boot to a DOS prompt, but you can open a DOS Window and run DOS programs within it. Windows Me does not use a config.sys unless you have an old driver loaded in your current setup that isn’t supported by Windows Me. This is important! The config.sys is where you place the device drivers to set up Expanded and High memory. So how did we get the system to recognize these memory settings that Q&A needs to run successfully? We didn’t have to do anything. After installing Windows Me, click on Start / Programs / Accessories / MS DOS prompt. In the DOS window, type mem/c/p and press Enter twice. If you see a line that reports any numbers in Expanded memory, you’re okay. Close the DOS window and use Q&A just like you did in Windows 95/98. Create your Q&A desktop shortcut and set its memory properties as we’ve explained in previous columns. (Search T.J.’s Quick Answer Index Database at www.quickanswer.com on the keyword memory.) But if that line is missing, you probably have one of the few computers with a BIOS that doesn’t support Expanded memory (like our Compaq notebook). This doesn’t appear to be Windows Me-related. With Q&A for Windows or Q&A 4.0 for DOS this isn’t a problem. But in Q&A 5.0 for DOS, Expanded memory is crucial for printing lengthy reports, entering large amounts of data in expanded fields, fonting documents, and other operations. So, what do you do with such PCs? That question is still under study and we hope to report on it soon. Testing network connections and overall Q&A speed running in Windows Me has not yet been completed. We hope to let you know on that soon, too. But like that Energizer bunny, Q&A keeps on going! All preliminary findings show that, with the same caveats as in prior versions of Windows 9x, all versions of Q&A 4.0/5.0 should run fine in Windows Me! Windows ME and Expanded Memory (From the November 2000 issue of The Quick Answer) Question: I believe that Expanded Memory is important to Q&A 5.0’s operation. I just bought a new computer—a Pentium III 800Mhz—and installed Q&A on it. When I tried to set my Q&A shortcut’s properties for the proper memory settings, the Expanded Memory section was blank on the Memory tab and there seems to be no way around it. Q&A reports 0 (zero) K on the Expanded Memory line at the Ctrl-F3 System Information screen. Can you help me?Answer: Windows ME does not use a Config.sys file, so you cannot implement the High or Expanded Memory drivers at startup. Some new PC’s that come with Windows ME installed show Expanded memory available on startup. Some don’t. All seem to have the proper settings in the Windows registry. The confusing issue is, What makes some machines different from others? Fortunately, we were able to get this answer from Microsoft’s Knowledge Base:
Be advised this will work for most computers, but there some (mostly notebooks) that do not provide the physical memory for this use and will not be corrected with this fix. But for most users, Q&A continues on. For more on getting Expanded Memory from PC’s that don’t otherwise support it, see the May 2000 issue, p. 12 and the July 2000 issue, p. 2. Update on Windows ME added September 22, 2001. There is a brief write-up in the September 2001 issue of The Quick Answer wherein Bill Halpern strongly criticizes Windows Me for use other than a home computer O/S and warns anyone who uses their computer for business purposes to avoid it. Random non-repeatable lockups and slowdowns are among the reasons given. Also in September 2001 we were told by a Q&A developer that he heard from a Gateway employee that the most recent Me update will not support Expanded Memory in any way, shape, or form. Q&A 4.0 for DOS makes use of available Expanded Memory for certain operations. Q&A 5.0 for DOS requires it. For more on setting up Q&A in Windows 9x, see David Dvorin's article, "Q&A 5 and Win 95: A Cool Combo," Parts 1 and 2, in the October and November 1997 issues of The Quick Answer. Also see Alec Mulvey's comprehensive article, "Installing and Configuring Q&A" (covers 4.0 and 5.0 for DOS) in the February 2000 issue. For more on Windows 2000-specific set-up issues, see "Can Q&A Live On in Windows 2000" in the May 2000 issue. See the June 2000 issue for info on how to get the mouse working in Q&A for DOS running in Windows 2000. See the September 2001 issue for info on how to properly configure your Q&A for DOS shortcut in Windows 2000 and also how to make Q&A for DOS run in full-screen mode by default in Windows 2000. The August 2001 issue contains a brief overview of how the various versions of Q&A fare in the various Windows O/S's. The October 2001 issue contains some specific setup issues for running Q&A for DOS in Windows XP. These back issues can be ordered in printed or Acrobat Reader editions using our Online Order Form. For more info on running Q&A in the various Windows O/S's, visit www.pcta-usa.com. Note: We offer a videotape of Bill Halpern's 1.5 hour presentation at the International Q&A Users Conference 2001 where he covers in detail ALL the setup and configuration requirements for successfully installing and running Q&A in all the Windows operating systems from Windows 95/98 through Windows 2000 and Windows ME. This VHS videotape is available as a part of the complete Q&A Users Conference 2001 Tape Set which is now available. See Q&A Conference Videos. |
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Last modified: December 11, 2006