Here is some information on Win97 (Memphis)
From novak@nuc.net (novak@nuc.net)
Organization Altopia Corp. - Affordable Usenet Access - http://www.alt.net
Date Wed, 08 Jan 1997 01:41:37 GMT
Newsgroups comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video
Message-ID <32d3f36f.2796869@news.alt.net>
Here is the release notes to a prerelease of Win97 (whatever).
Something I found interesting was that there are some DirectX 5.0
pre-release drivers in this "beta", however, it still uses the DirectX
3.0 API. I'm hoping DMA may be supported for the Verite. I'll try
the MTM benchmark with it and post what I find in the next day or two.
For all you Voodoo owners, looks like the Voodoo will be supported
OOTB in the next release of windows. Check out the support for
multiple displays.
BTW, I got this off Usenet in case you're interested. Please, don't
send me mail related to it.
__________________________________________________________
Microsoft®
"Memphis"
Developer Release
Release Notes
December 15, 1996
This guide contains installation instructions, technical application
notes and known issues for the new features included in this release.
Please read this guide carefully. This guide is not a complete
documentation for all product features. This guide will not be
available in the final product, but the material will be merged into
the standard printed documentation and help files. The purpose of
this guide is to enable you to focus on beta testing the new and
updated components.
Microsoft Confidential
All information contained in this document is confidential, and is
further governed by your Non-Disclosure Agreement with Microsoft.
This document is provided as part of a pre-release product, is subject
to change without notice, and may be changed substantially prior to
commercial release.
This documentation is provided "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, MICROSOFT FURTHER
DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND
NON-INFRINGEMENT. THE ENTIRE RISK ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
DOCUMENTATION REMAINS WITH RECIPIENT.
Information in this document is subject to change without notice. The
names of companies, products, people, characters, and/or data
mentioned herein are fictitious and are in no way intended to
represent any real individual, company, product, or event, unless
otherwise noted. Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the
responsibility of the user. No part of this document may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, for any purpose, without the express written permission of
Microsoft Corporation. If, however, your only means of access is
electronic, permission to print one copy is hereby granted.
Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks,
copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject
matter in this document. The furnishing of this document does not
give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or
other intellectual property.
Ó 1995 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Microsoft, MS-DOS, MS, Windows, Windows NT, <plus other appropriate
product names or titles> are either registered trademarks or
trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S.A. and/or other
countries.
<This is where mention of specific, contractually obligated to, third
party trademarks should be listed.>
Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks
of their respective owners.
Contents
General Information 5
Welcome! 5
10 Responsibilities of a Beta Tester 5
Before You Start 6
Read this Guide 6
Installing the Software 7
What is Memphis? 8
What's New in Memphis 8
Beta Preview - Coming soon to a computer near you 10
Application Notes 11
Hardware Support 11
FAT32 11
Multiple Display Support 15
Win32 Driver Model (WDM) 17
PCMCIA 19
Power Management 20
Device Drivers 21
IrDA Device Drivers and Utilities 23
Under the Hood 24
Internet 25
Internet Explorer 25
Internet Mail and News 25
NetMeeting 25
Internet Connection Wizard 26
Shell, User and GDI 26
Plus! Features 26
Miscellaneous User/GDI enhancements 27
Image Color Matching 2.0 API 27
Display Control Panel Improvements 28
Communications and Networking 29
Dial Up Networking and Dial Up Scripting 29
TAPI 2.0 29
Unimodem/V 30
ISDN 1.1 30
NDIS 4.1 30
ATM 30
Winsock 2.0 30
Remote Access Server 30
Microsoft Service for NetWare Directory Service (MS-NDS) 31
Microsoft 32-bit DLC protocol stack 31
Applets and Utilities 31
Backup 31
Internet Update Manager 32
Web-based Bug Submission 32
Dr. Watson 32
Calc 32
Windows Scripting 32
Windows Messaging (Inbox) Update 33
Imaging by Wang 33
General & Miscellaneous 34
Version 34
OLE/DCOM 34
Multimedia 34
Windows Management Infrastructure 35
Running ScanDisk after bad shutdown 35
Updated Time Zone, Daylight Savings Time and International Dialing
Codes settings 35
Service Packs 35
Release Notes: Known Third-Party Application Issues 36
General Information
Welcome!
Welcome to the Beta Test Program for Memphis, the next major release
of Windows. This is the first beta release, called "Memphis Developer
Release, December 1996". This document describes the key new features
since Windows 95 Gold shipped last year. This release represents a
beta of the Memphis base code, new hardware support, and other
features described in this document but not a beta of the complete
Memphis product. We believe that this is a solid release and a good
platform for testing hardware and application compatibility.
YOUR participation and YOUR timely feedback are critical to the
success of this product! Please install this product on as many
different hardware configurations as possible, and report both your
successes and your problems as soon as possible. Successes should be
reported using our web-based survey tools, while bugs should be
reported using the web-based bug report tools or MSReport. Please see
the Beta Guide for information on the specific bug reporting
procedures.
10 Responsibilities of a Beta Tester
1. Please maintain confidentiality about this release and its
features.
2. Install and use the software promptly.
3. Test the product for application and hardware compatibility, and
report problems and suggestions promptly.
4. Ensure that the pre-release software is used only by the beta test
participants at your site in accordance with the Microsoft Beta
Tester's Non-Disclosure Agreement you or your company signed.
5. Understand that the increased level of contact (such as phone calls
from Microsoft to you) is for the beta test period only. At the
conclusion of the beta test program, normal product support will be
available.
6. Allow Microsoft access to the designated beta test equipment if
necessary.
7. Understand that a pre-release product may contain problems that
could affect normal office productivity. You should expect some down
time, and you might encounter loss of data. You should back up your
system before installing the pre-release software, and often during
the beta test program. Microsoft is not responsible for any problems
resulting from the use of this pre-release software.
8. Upon notice of completion of the beta test, destroy all of the
pre-release software and beta program documentation.
9. If you manufacture products that are designed to be compatible with
Windows 95, you may be asked to provide loaner copies of your products
for our test labs. This includes new PCs, adapter cards, disk drives,
software, etc. If you want to loan your latest products to ensure
that your products are adequately covered, contact your Microsoft
Account Manager or send email to IHV@microsoft.com. PC Manufacturers
should ensure that the new Windows 95 Hardware and Integration Labs
have final production copies of all of your machines to ensure broad
test coverage, and enable our engineers to rapidly diagnose
reproducible problems in our labs.
10. Have Fun!
Before You Start
First, a word of caution. Although we have put much effort into the
verification of this software, it is pre-release software that will be
used by every application that you run. Microsoft strongly suggests
that you back up any important existing data and programs before you
install or run any of this software. Also, whether you intend to use
FAT32 or not, be sure to make a new Startup disk when running Setup.
Startup disks created with the released version of Windows 95 are not
compatible with Memphis
Note on Backup: Memphis includes a new backup utility. If you
currently have the Windows 95 Backup on your system this new backup
will be able to restore from Win95 backups in the next beta, but right
now, the format is not supported.
Sites using this software may encounter minor problems, and in rare
cases, it is possible that some sites may encounter loss or
destruction of data. Microsoft is not responsible for any problems
resulting from the use of this beta software.
Read this Guide
Please read both of these documents before installing Memphis. These
documents contain important beta and product information that you may
need.
The documents are organized as follows:
Installing the Software
This section under revision by Raja & StevenF, I hope.
What is Memphis?
Over the past year, Windows 95 has had two supplemental releases (OEM
Service Releases) for PC Manufacturers to support new hardware and
provide the latest Internet software. Memphis will be both a retail
and PC Manufacturer (OEM) release that incorporates all of the OSR-1,
OSR-2 and USB updates combined with new features and functionality,
including the most next version of Internet Explorer.
The primary goal of this initial "December 96 Test Release" is to
enable developers working on Memphis technologies and drivers to begin
testing and to get good beta site feedback on application
compatibility and general system stability. Key development
technology areas include WDM, USB, DVD, Digital Audio, ACPI and other
hardware development work.
Memphis is built on the same code base as Windows 95. Our goal is to
provide the same level of compatibility as Windows 95, while improving
hardware support, system stability and robustness, reducing support
and administration costs, and updating Internet applications and other
utilities. We have added a limited set of NT Kernel services for WDM,
but the same real-mode MS-DOS components, Windows 95 Kernel, User, GDI
and VMM are still available for existing application compatibility.
Removing or rearchitecting these components would introduce
significant compatibility and performance problems. By continuing to
use these, while adding common services between NT and Windows 95, we
are able to support the best of both worlds.
Memphis has a few API extensions over Windows 95 gold, but most of
these are also available as add-on packages for Windows 95 (for
example, DirectX, ActiveMovie, Internet Explorer APIs, etc.), or are
only relevant to a very few vendors (FAT32 disk structure details).
There are a few new Memphis APIs for new features such as Multiple
display support, which will be documented in a future SDK.
The official name for Memphis has not yet been decided. Many people
in the press have designated it "Windows 97". While that is among
several possibilities, it is not the official product name at this
time, and they are just guessing. For convenience, we use the code
name Memphis in place of Window 95/Windows 97 terminology.
What's New in Memphis
The features highlighted below are features that are new or
significantly improved in Memphis since OSR 2.1 (a.k.a. Detroit,
a.k.a. the USB supplement). The next section contains the list of
most of the key new and updated features since Windows 95, along with
short descriptions and release notes. When a new Memphis component
has superceded an OSR1 or OSR-2 component, only the details of the
current features are discussed.
· New Setup - The first thing you will see is that setup has been
redesigned and streamlined to improve the experience for existing
Windows 95 users upgrading to Memphis. We no longer need to do a full
hardware detection during the initial setup. Memphis setup also uses
the information on applets and utilities that you have installed
already, and updates just those. (The next beta will offer new
"optional components" at the conclusion of the core upgrade.)
· Multiple Display Support - Possibly one of the neatest new features,
if you have a PCI machine and can get two PCI display adapters and
monitors, you are in for a treat. Reading email and clicking on an
HTTP link, and having the browser pop up on the adjacent monitor, or
the potential ability for a game to have left, right and center
displays, or a separate instrumentation console are hot. Not to
mention the old standby dual-monitor uses - desktop publishing and
presentations/notes, or just to get a big, giant desktop.
· Win32 Driver Model (WDM) - The all-new, unified driver model for
Windows 95 and Windows NT. Don't worry, all your existing "legacy"
drivers will continue to work just fine. WDM enables new classes of
devices and busses to have a single driver for both operating systems.
Examples are USB, HID, IEEE 1394, Digital Audio, DVD players, still
image and video capture. See below for more information on these
device classes in Memphis.
· ACPI Power Management - ACPI is a new power control specification
that supports new hardware interfaces in future PCs. Many OEMs are
hard at work developing their ACPI machines. This Memphis test
release provides the first operating system support for them to
continue their development. We expect that the industry will be able
deliver ACPI-enabled PCs when Memphis ships.
· FAT32 in-place converter - This is the feature that many of you
tested as part of OSR-2, now preparing to be available to end-users
for upgrading their machines.
· Web-based support tools - A new internet driver and component update
utility will help reduce cost of ownership by providing a simple,
controllable update engine. A new web-based bug reporting tool will
be used both for beta bugs and, when we've shipped, for reporting
problems to product support groups along with appropriate
configuration information.
· Scripting - Memphis includes Windows Scripting Host, a shell that
lets you take advantage of ActiveX scripting (VBS and JS) directly
from the shell or the command line, without embedding in HTML.
Windows finally has built-in scripting!
· Dr. Watson 32 - New and improved, when your application generates a
GPF, with the great detective's assistant watching over you, the
"details" button now provides a whole host of advanced technical
information. This should help technical support desks get their users
up and running faster, and help application developers find and fix
bugs easier.
· Plus! Tab - We've built-in the Full Window Drag, Font Smoothing, and
other UI enhancements formerly available as part of the Plus! Package,
and added the "Plus!" tab to the standard display control panel. This
brings Memphis up to parity with NT 4.0.
· OLE DCOM- Distributed component object model extensions for existing
OLE interfaces.
· Backup - All-new Backup applet, supports SCSI Tape and a host of
other new backup devices. It doesn't yet read the old Win95 backup
format, but we won't ship until it does.
· Display, Disk, Modem and Monitor drivers - The first batch of a
broad driver update shows up mostly in these four areas - Display
drivers fresh from the DirectX 5 development labs (with multiple
monitor support enabled), a new, faster floppy disk driver,
approximately 300 new modem drivers and about 175 new monitors listed.
Next time we'll have a bunch of printer and network cards, along with
a few other device classes, and of course, more modems and monitors.
Beta Preview - Coming soon to a computer near you
There are a few features that were not quite ready for this test
release, but we are planning to put them in the next beta. We wanted
to give you some idea of what is coming. Please remember, however,
that as market conditions, development schedules and hardware
technology develops, we may have to change some of these features.
This is not a commitment to deliver any of these features, just an
indication of current plans. We have also noted in many cases in the
individual feature application notes what's coming soon.
Internet Explorer 4 - Most notably absent from this release is the new
Internet Explorer 4, with integrated shell browsing and Active
Desktop. Various versions of this product have already been in
private test releases, demonstrated at developer shows, and reviewed
in some publications. IE 4 is currently undergoing some
infrastructure changes and adding support for a whole new HTML
rendering subsystem. The current versions are not yet ready for beta
testing, so we decided to hold off on this and ship a good test
platform for the other advancements we've made, to help developers and
get some early core beta feedback. Because IE 4 is such a key part of
Memphis, we didn't feel that we could call this Beta 1 without it, so
we're calling it the December 96 Release.
Shell and Desktop Improvements - In addition to the IE 4 web shell and
active desktop that you may have seen or read about, we have some more
UI and shell improvements that we think you will like. We are hoping
to make the login, shutdown and control panel more organized, and
simplify many of the things you need to do. We're also fixing a few
"nits" that have shown up after a couple of years using the shell.
Boot - Boot time enhancements and security, including logo.sys
validation.
Multimedia - Activemovie 2.0 and DirectX 5 - These multimedia
enhancements will be available in future betas.
Networking - ATM networking support, TCP/IP improvements,
Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol, IP conferencing, TCP/IP IGMP v2,
quality of service, etc.
Drivers - Drivers, Drivers & More Drivers. Specifically, several
hundred new printer minidrivers, a bunch of new modem drivers, Still
image and video capture drivers, and others. Hardware vendors, if you
haven't been in touch with WHQL or another program management contact
and you are interested in adding support for your new devices in
Memphis, please contact WHQL and they will help you out. You can find
more information on:
http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev for design information about WDM,
busses and classes in Memphis, and
http://www.microsoft.com/hwtest for WHQL contacts and logo
information.
Application Notes
Hardware Support
For more detailed technical information on WDM, ACPI, USB, DVD, and
the other new technologies, please refer to the hardware development
web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev
FAT32
Originally available in OSR-2
FAT32 is an improved version of the File Allocation Table file system
that allows disks over 2GB to be formatted as a single drive, and
which uses smaller clusters than on FAT16 drives, resulting in
somewhat more efficient use of space on large disks (over 1 GB).
FAT32 originally appeared in OSR-2.
FAT32 drives have a different on-disk format than FAT12 or FAT16
drives. To date, most disk utilities have already been revised to
work on FAT32 volumes, including all the major vendors. You may need
to update your disk utilities if you have an older version. The disk
utilities included with Windows have already been revised to include
FAT32 support, in particular: FDISK, Format, ScanDisk, Defrag and
DriveSpace. In addition, support for FAT32 affects many of the
internal data structures that the real-mode DOS kernel and the protect
mode file system components use. As a result, some device drivers and
disk utilities may encounter compatibility problems with Memphis,
whether or not FAT32 drives are used. If you encounter such
compatibility problems, please submit bug reports on them immediately
- even if the problem affects a driver or utility that you or another
vendor will be revising. In order to support FAT32, many new
low-level disk APIs are provided with Memphis and some old ones will
fail or behave differently on FAT32 drives. The new and changed APIs
are summarized in the October '96 Win32 SDK, available via a
subscription to MSDN.
Note that most applications are unable to display free or total disk
space over 2GB. Memphis includes new DOS and Win32 APIs
(GetDiskFreeSpaceEx) that applications can use to obtain the correct
amounts of space. The Windows Explorer and the MS-DOS command prompt
have been modified to use these new APIs so they should display the
correct amount of free space. File Manager will not display more than
2GB of free space.
How to enable FAT32
Brianem, we need to update this!
There are 3 ways to enable FAT32:
· Setup Memphis on an empty, unpartitioned disk, using a boot floppy
and running OEMSETUP.EXE (not Setup.exe). See the Installing the
Software section of this document for instructions on how to do this.
· Run FDISK on a drive over 512MB. It will prompt you whether to
enable "large disk support" If you answer Yes, any partitions you
create that are over 512MB in size will be marked as FAT32 partitions
and will be formatted as such. (Note that there is no benefit to
installing FAT32 on a disk smaller than 512 MB.)
· Convert an existing FAT16 drive in-place. In the \BetaOnly folder
on the beta CD, there is a batch file called FAT32.BAT. Run this
batch file from within Windows, and it will:
· Copy a conversion utility into your C:\ directory
· Prompt you for a drive to convert
· Restart your system into MS-DOS mode
· Check that drive for errors using ScanDisk
· Convert the drive to FAT32
· Defragment the drive upon rebooting into Windows. Note that
converting a drive in place will cause it to become extremely
fragmented, so defragmenting it the first time may take several hours.
You can stop the defragmenter before it finishes, but you should allow
it to run to completion at your earliest convenience as performance
may be poor until you completely defragment it.
Converting a drive in place is a safe, fast operation (it typically
only takes a few minutes, except for the defrag operation which may
take several hours). However, there is no utility for converting a
drive back to FAT16 once you've converted it to FAT32.
IMPORTANT notes about testing FAT32:
· Make a Windows Startup disk using Memphis before enabling FAT32!
· Backup any data on your drive before converting it in place using
the FAT32.BAT utility. If you like, you can use the RAWREAD utility
in the BetaOnly directory on your beta CD to copy an exact image of
your drive into a single large image file on another drive. If
necessary, the RAWWRITE utility can be used to restore the contents of
your drive from the image file that the RAWREAD utility creates.
· Do not use FAT32 on any drives that you need to access from other
operating systems, including the released version of Windows 95, all
versions of Windows NT, and earlier versions of Windows or MS-DOS.
Note that if you need to dual boot another OS, you cannot convert
drive C: to FAT32, even if the other OS is installed on a different
drive. However, systems running Memphis can share FAT32 drives across
a network, and they will be accessible by MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, "gold"
Windows 95 and Windows NT clients, just like any other FAT drive.
Also note that MS-DOS 7.1 (the version included with Memphis) fully
supports FAT32, so you can run most MS-DOS mode games and applications
from FAT32 drives.
FAT32 Question and Answer
Will FAT32 be faster than FAT16?
In general, no. FAT32 performance will usually be about the same as
FAT16, but in some cases, it may be a bit slower. The major benefits
of FAT32 are that it's more efficient than FAT16 on larger disks
(sometimes by as much as 20-30%), and that it can support drives
larger than 2 GB without having to use multiple partitions.
Note that in real-mode MS-DOS or when running Windows 95 in Safe Mode,
FAT32 will be considerably slower than FAT16. If you need to run
applications in MS-DOS mode, loading SmartDrv.EXE in Autoexec.bat may
be beneficial.
What should I test?
The best way to help us test FAT32 is to enable it using one of the
methods described above and then (re)install all of your applications
onto your FAT32 drive and verify that they setup and run properly.
We'd also like you to focus on verifying that your Backup, Anti-Virus
and MS-DOS mode games and applications continue to function as they
did under "gold" Windows 95.
Can I dual boot Windows NT if I use FAT32?
In general, no. Windows NT (including version 4.0) cannot access or
boot from a FAT32 drive, so if you need to dual boot Windows NT, you
should not use FAT32 except on a non-boot drive that you don't need to
access from NT.
Will Windows NT ever support FAT32?
We are unable to comment at this time about the features of future
versions of Windows NT. We recognize that this will prevent some of
you from testing FAT32, and we're sorry that we can't provide FAT32
support in Windows NT at this time. Please understand that the issue
is not whether we think customers want FAT32 support under Windows NT,
but is strictly a matter of development and test resources and our
existing release commitments. We're actively working on plans for
converging file system support between Windows 95 and Windows NT
(including ensuring that Win9x customers with FAT32 drives will have
an upgrade path to Windows NT), but we can't make any specific
commitments at this time.
Why didn't Microsoft just add NTFS to Windows 95, rather than
introduce another file system?
We certainly considered NTFS, but it didn't meet three requirements
that we felt were critical for Windows 95: Windows 95 boots using
real-mode MS-DOS and supports MS-DOS mode for games and other
applications that cannot run under a multitasking OS. Supporting NTFS
under DOS would have taken a significant amount of very limited DOS
memory and thus would have impaired Windows' ability to continue to
support these applications. Implementing NTFS without DOS support
would have meant that two disk partitions would have been required: a
FAT partition to boot from, plus the main NTFS partition. We felt
that for Win9x customers, a solution that allowed a single drive
letter was critical. Secondly, based on feedback from PC and disk
drive manufacturers, it's clear that a significant percentage of new
PCs are currently shipping with > 2 GB drives. Given the
sophistication and complexity of NTFS, we felt that it would have been
impossible to complete and test an NTFS implementation until well
after this problem had become acute. Finally, because NTFS has such a
different on-disk format than FAT, we felt that FAT32 was much less
likely to introduce application compatibility problems.
Is the FAT16->FAT32 converter part of Memphis?
Yes. The conversion tool will be a part of the final release version
of Memphis.
How can I tell if my drive is FAT32?
In My Computer, right click on the drive and select properties. The
"Type" field should indicate whether a drive is FAT or FAT32.
What cluster size is used on FAT32 drives?
As with all FAT drives, the cluster size used on FAT32 drives depends
on the size of the drive. The defaults are:
Drive size Cluster size
< 260MB 512 bytes
260MB - 8GB 4k
8GB - 16GB 8k
16GB - 32GB 16k
> 32GB 32k
These are the defaults you will get if you FDISK and format a drive
using FAT32 or if you convert an existing FAT drive in place using
CVT.EXE. NOTE: FDISK will only offer to enable FAT32 support on
drives over 512MB.
Can I use disk compression on FAT32 drives?
No. The DriveSpace included with Memphis has been modified to
recognize FAT32 drives, but it will not compress them. We do not plan
to make further modifications to the core DriveSpace at this time.
Can I use FAT32 on drives that are NOT visible in real-mode MS-DOS?
Yes, but you need to use a slightly different procedure to convert
them in place. Follow the steps listed above for converting a drive
(i.e. run FAT32.BAT from the \BetaOnly directory on the beta CD), but
when it prompts you for a drive to convert, hit Ctrl-C to exit out of
the batch file. Then run the FAT32cvt.BAT file in the root directory
of your C: drive. Use the following command: C:\FAT32cvt.BAT x: /W,
where x: is the drive you wish to convert.
Relnotes for FAT32
Dual Boot and FAT32
You cannot use FAT32 on a machine that you need to dual-boot to
another operating system, including the original release of Windows
95, Windows NT and Windows 3.1 or MS-DOS 6.x. Other operating systems
are unable to access a FAT32 partition. This is simply because these
older operating systems do not understand the new data structures.
You CAN dual boot to another Operating System if drive C: is FAT16,
but if you have other partitions that are FAT32, they will not be
visible to other operating systems.Memphis also supports dual-booting
between Memphis and older MS-DOS operating systems (e.g. MS-DOS 6.22)
using the same "F4" dual-boot that Windows 95 supports. You can not
at this time, however, multi-boot between Windows 95 and Memphis as
Memphis replaces Windows 95.
FAT32 and Disk Free Space
Some applications will be unable to display free or total disk space
over 2GB, even on larger FAT32 drives. These applications will show
the correct free space up to 2GB, but at that point they will max out
and only show 2GB. This is typically due to limitations in those
applications that assumed that free space could never exceed 2GB
because of the previous FAT16 limitations. Memphis provides new DOS
and Win32 APIs that applications can utilize to determine free or
total disk space over 2GB.
FAT32 Converter
You can convert a hard drive from FAT16 to FAT32 by running the FAT32
Converter in the Programs> Accessories> System Utilities menu. After
running the FAT32 converter, Defrag will run on that drive during your
next boot. Defragmenting your drive may take several hours after it
has been converted. You CAN stop the defragmenter and run it at
another time, but your system performance may be degraded until you
allow the defragmenter to complete on this drive.
For drives that are ONLY supported under Windows (drives that arenot
supported by your BIOS nor a DOS device driver), you canconvert them
under Windows if you run CVT.EXE with the /w commandline switch, e.g.:
CVT D: /w
InterLnk from MS-DOS 6
The InterLnk networking product contained in MS-DOS 6.x will not
function properly in MS-DOS mode if you are using FAT32.
Ontrack Systems Disk Manager
If you use Ontrack Systems' Disk Manager product on a system that is
booting from a FAT32 drive, it may result in a long pause at boot time
and/or that the drive will be set to run in compatibility mode. With
version 7.0x, you can Use the /L=0 option with Disk Manager to avoid
this pause. If you are running an earlier version of Disk Manager,
you should update to version 7.04 and use the /L=0 switch if you use
FAT32.
Syquest SQATDRV.SYS and SQDRIVER.SYS Drivers
The SQATDRV.SYS driver may cause systems containing FAT32 drives to
hang during boot. Remove this driver from the CONFIG.SYS file if you
are using FAT32 drives on a system with this device driver. Versions
of these drivers that are compatible with FAT32 boot drives will be
added to the Windows Driver Library (on the Windows CD and
downloadable from the Internet) shortly.
Multiple Display Support
New for Memphis
Multiple Display Support allows you to use multiple monitors and/or
multiple graphics adapters on a single PC. The UI has been modified to
recognize a desktop that spans multiple monitors, with no restrictions
on size or position. For monitors attached to the same system but
showing different images simultaneously, the different displays might
have differing X,Y resolution and refresh rates plus differing display
capabilities.
To support this capability, APIs have been added to the Win32 API set
to allow any application to take advantage of multiple monitors.
Applications do not need to be modified to work on a PC with multiple
monitors, but some applications developers may want to take special
advantage of this feature by calling the new APIs.
Enabling Multiple Display Support:
Enabling this feature is fairly straightforward. The primary
requirement is that both of the display adapters must be PCI devices.
The setup instructions vary according to the following two scenarios:
Your computer has PCI display on the motherboard and you have a second
PCI display adapter to plug in.
If your computer has a built in PCI display chipset on the
motherboard, follow these steps exactly when setting up Memphis:
· First, run Memphis setup program with only the motherboard video in
the computer.
· After setup has completed successfully, shut down and add additional
display adapters.
· Boot the computer, and restart when prompted.
· In control panel, display, you should notice a "Monitors" tab
replacing the "Settings" tab. If you do not see this tab, see the
section "Troubleshooting multiple display support".
· Select the secondary display/monitor combination, and check the box
entitled "Use this device as part of the desktop.
Notice you can independently set the resolution and color depth for
each display by selecting the settings button when the desired
monitor/adapter pair is selected. Other notes with regard to systems
with built in motherboard display adapters are:
· The built in display will usually become your secondary display (or
tertiary, etc, depending on the number of graphics boards you have in
the system). The system will disable the onboard video at boot time,
and the add-in card will become your primary display. This is a
function of the BIOS and is not under our control.
· It is important you setup Memphis for the first time with only your
onboard video in the system. If another adapter is present before you
start Memphis for the first time, it is likely we will not be able to
initialize your onboard video properly until you run setup without the
additional graphics boards installed.
· If you follow the instructions, and your onboard video does not
function correctly as the secondary display, it probably never will.
It's likely we are unable to find and read the complete ROM of the
adapter in order to initialize it properly. You will have to use two
add-in adapters for multiple monitor support.
You have two separate plug-in PCI display adapters.
If your computer's display adapter is an add-in card (i.e., none of
the display adapters in the system are on the motherboard or
built-in), you have the option of installing the additional graphics
cards before setting up Memphis. The instructions in the section
"Your computer has motherboard video" will also work.
General notes about Multiple Display Support
Virtually any graphics adapter can function as a primary display. Any
PCI graphics adapter with a Windows 95 or later driver (with the noted
exception of motherboard, or onboard video) can be a primary display.
In order to function as a secondary display however, the display
adapter must be a PCI device supported by Memphis as an additional
display adapter. The following display adapter chipsets are supported
as additional displays in this release:
· ATI Mach64
· S3 764(Trio), 764V+(765)
· Cirrus 5436,7548,5446
· Imagine 128 I and II
· S3 ViRGE
· ET6000
Troubleshooting Multiple Display Support:
Under some circumstances you may find that you either cannot see the
new "Monitors" tab in control panel, display, or you otherwise cannot
use the additional display(s) as part of your desktop. Here are a few
known scenarios to be aware of:
Motherboard, or onboard video
Certain problems can occur using onboard PCI video with additional
displays:
· Problem #1: PCI motherboard video is hidden from enumerator.
Some systems vendors hide the motherboard video from PCI when another
video card is detected in the system. If plug and play can't find the
device, we of course cannot start it. If you have this particular
problem, there is nothing you can do. If you look in control panel,
system, device manager, and only your add-in card is present and
working, this could likely be your problem.
· Problem #2: Cannot read the ROM from a motherboard video device. We
may be able to overcome this problem for now, provided you setup
Memphis without any other display adapters in the system. See the
section "Your computer has motherboard video".
The primary display is using the VGA driver, or a Windows 3.x driver
Again, virtually any PCI graphics adapter can be used as the primary
display. However, if the driver used for the device is an old Windows
3.x driver, or the standard VGA driver, any secondary displays will
not start. The standard VGA driver is used whenever the desktop
resolution is 640x480 and the color depth is 16 colors.
Unsupported secondary display
Secondary displays must be PCI devices the meet certain criterion.
Not the least of which is the capability of running in "GUI" mode, or
running without using VGA resources. They must also have a Memphis
driver that enables them to be the secondary display. If any of these
conditions is not met for any additional graphics adapters in the
system, they will not work as secondary displays. See the list of
supported chipsets in the section "General notes about Multiple
Display Support".
Win32 Driver Model (WDM)
New for Memphis
The all-new, unified driver model for Windows 95 and Windows NT. WDM
enables new classes of devices and busses to have a single driver for
both operating systems, by adding selected NT Kernel services in a
special NTKern.VXD, while maintaining full legacy device driver
support for existing device drivers in existing code.
USB Support
Originally distributed to PC Manufacturers as a supplement for OSR-2
machines.
Includes support for USB hubs, Universal and Open host controller
interfaces, and HID compliant USB devices (see Human Input Devices
(HID)). Stream class support in Memphis provides infrastructure for
USB audio and camera devices.
Human Input Devices (HID)
New for Memphis
HID equivalents to legacy input devices (i.e. keyboards, keypads,
mice, pointing devices, joysticks and game pads) that are compliant
with the Human Interface Device firmware specification are supported
by Memphis when connected via the Universal Serial Bus (USB). Input
from these HID devices is routed to applications through the legacy
input driver architecture in a totally transparent way. Multiple
keyboards can be connected and used simultaneously, but the multiple
input streams are merged and passed to the single active application
window in focus. Similarly, multiple mice and pointing devices can be
connected and used simultaneously, but the input streams are merged to
control the movement of the single pointer on the screen. Joysticks
and gamepads, however, are treated as distinct devices just as can be
expected so that applications can distinguish which input comes from
which device, etc.
Memphis Beta 1 will support input devices that are compliant with
Version 1.0 Draft #3 of the HID firmware specification. Future Beta
releases will support later drafts of this spec.
HID functionality that go beyond what the legacy input devices listed
above are capable of is not automatically supported by Memphis, but
require additional vendor and/or application specific software (e.g.
drivers, special applications, etc.) that know how to interpret and
use this data to be installed on the system. Device vendors and
developers should consult the Memphis DDK for details.
IEEE 1394
New for Memphis
Support for the IEEE 1394 bus includes the 1394-bus class driver, and
mini-driver for the Texas Instruments PCI-LYNX 200Mbps host
controller. Support for the 1394 Sony desktop camera (CCM-DS250) is
also provided using the Memphis Stream class.
WDM Digital Audio
Billyb, What do we have here?
DVD Storage and UDF File System
New for Memphis
DVD-ROM drives as a storage media are being supported for the first
time in Memphis. In order to be able to use a DVD-ROM drive, you must
have a drive that is compliant to the Mt. Fuji specification (also
called SFF8090). The CD-ROM class driver that existed in Windows95
has been updated to support DVD-ROM drives as well.
We also have a new filesystem, called UDF (Universal Disk Filesystem).
It is currently a read-only filesystem, you can not write UDF to a
disc. This is implemented because DVD movies will always have an UDF
filesystem on them, while they may or may not have an ISO9660
filesystem on them. You can tell if you have UDF support installed on
your system if you have the binary udf.vxd somewhere on your system.
All DVD-ROM drives are required to support DMA. You will have to
enable this on your own for now; please go to Device Manager, select
properties of the drive, check the DMA box presented, and reboot to
run on DMA.
DVD Movie Playback
DVD movie playback requires the following components:
Hardware:
DVD-ROM drive
DVD movie media
DVD (MPEG/AC-3) decoder
Software:
DVD storage support
WDM Stream class driver
Stream minidriver specific to your decoder hardware (not written by
Microsoft)
ActiveMovie filtergraph specific to your decoder
DVD Movie playback application
The above list will allow DVD movie playback on a NTSC or PAL display,
if the decoder card has such an output. If output on a VGA is
desired, then there should be a physical connection between the
decoder card and the graphics adapter, and a DirectDraw HAL with VPE
support should be written for the graphics adapter.
There is the possibility for the decoders to be in software rather
than hardware on faster processors.
On the WDM DDK Preview, there is a test app for DVD movie playback in
the \betaonly\dvd directory. This can be used to try movie playback
on your PC.
If you are interested in help on your stream class minidriver, please
talk to your Microsoft contact about visiting the WDM porting lab to
further your efforts.
Microsoft is not yet providing DVD movie content.
WDM Still Image Capture
This device class includes scanners and digital still cameras. It's
not yet fully implemented in Memphis December 96 release, but is
planned for the first beta.
WDM Video Capture
This device class includes video cameras on USB or 1394, analog video
digitization hardware, and TV tuners. It's not yet fully implemented
in Memphis December 96 release, but is planned for the first beta.
PCMCIA
Originally in OSR-2
PCCard16 now supports 3.3volt & multi-function (i.e. net/modem) cards.
PCCard32 (CardBus) now supported.
Power management for PCCard Modems is now supported. These devices
are put in a low power state when software is not actively using the
modem. See the power management section for more info.
Power Management
ACPI
New for Memphis
Memphis contains basic ACPI support, to enable PC Manufacturers to
begin testing their prototype ACPI systems.
APM 1.2 Extensions
Originally in OSR-2
· New APM 1.2 services
· New Power Management control panel UI (including ide drive spindown
UI)
· New battery meter
Disk Spindown
Originally in OSR-2
Reduces power consumption, drive wear and low noise. This may cause a
slight delay in system response when the disk needs to spin back up.
You can control the power down delay as well as disable disk spindown
in the Power Management control panel. Typical settings for desktop
machines are 30 to 60 minutes.
Release Note: Some older systems may hang when the disk is spun down
or back up. You should disable disk spindown on these systems.
PCMCIA Modem Power Down & Resume on Ring
Originally in OSR-2
Power management for PCCard Modems is now supported. These devices
are put in a low power state when software is not actively using the
modem. Look in the Power management control panel to control this
feature.
Modem Power-Up Delay
If you get a message Modem Not Found or Not Ready, you may need to
increase the modem power up delay. The default delay is 2 seconds.
Some PC Card modems require an extra delay when PC Card Power
Management is enabled, before they are ready. If you encounter this
with your PC Card modem, the symptoms are that it may not work when
you try to use it, and then works if you try again right away.
To increase the delay, you can either Disable PC Card Power Management
in the Power management control panel, or you can add a registry key
using Regedit:
1. Navigate to the key:
\HKey_Local_Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\Modem
2. Go to the key for the modem that you are trying to use, and add a
key in the root of the modem key.
3. Edit / New, create a DWord named ConfigDelay
This value is in milliseconds. Set the value equal to "3000" for a 3
second delay. Experiment to get enough delay.
Please submit a bug with the delay necessary for your modem, and your
computer manufacturer and model information, and we will add this to
our list.
Device Drivers
Display
These are DirectX 3 and/or DirectX 5 drivers, with multiple display
support enabled.
New for Memphis: ET6000, MM3dfx (VooDoo), Imagine 128 II
Updated for Memphis: ati3d, chips, cirrus, cirruslg, cirrusmm, i128,
mach64, mgamm, rendition, s3mm, s3v
Note: The ATI Rage II chip will be supported in future Memphis
drivers. In the meantime, ATI has provided, as a courtesy to our beta
testers, a version of their driver which appears to work on Memphis.
It's located in the \betaonly directory.
Audio
Updated Windows Sound System driver from DirectX 3.
Modems
Approximately 300 new modems are supported, to bring Memphis up to
compatibility with Windows NT 4.0. We're now starting to add the
current crop of new Modem drivers, which will be available in the next
beta.
Printers
Look for new updated driver support in the next Beta. This release
includes the drivers that shipped with Windows 95 OSR-2.
Network Card
Disk Drives
Floppy Disk Driver
New for Memphis
Memphis includes an all-new, from scratch "HSFLOP.PDR" floppy disk
driver. This new driver offers significantly enhanced performance on
many machines. It should also work on some portable machines that
required custom HSFLOP.PDR files in the past. This new driver should
work on 100% of all known hardware. If you encounter problems with
this new code, please report ASAP.
Relnote: The current version will hit the floppy disk on boot; this
diagnostic test will be removed for the next beta.
LS 120 Support
Originally in OSR-2
The real mode MS-DOS kernel, protect mode file system components, and
the various formatting utilities have been updated to support the
LS-120 (120MB) floppies built in to some newer PCs.
IDE Disk Driver
Originally in OSR-1
This is an updated IDE hard disk driver which includes support for:
· Bus Mastering chipsets such as Intel Triton and Opti Viper M
· SMART (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology), a
hard-drive fault prediction system developed by Compaq and several
hard drive vendors
· IDE Tape backup units.
· ATAPI-CD-Changers (with up to 7 CD slots), including the
Sanyo/Torisan 3CD changer.
Bus Mastering
CAUTION: Some hard drives which were originally designed to support
this DMA functionality were found during joint Intel and Microsoft
testing to contain firmware bugs which can cause data corruption.
Only OEMs should enable the DMA feature when they ship compatible hard
disk drives. End Users should not enable the DMA feature on their PCs
if it was not enabled originally by their PC Manufacturer.
Notes:
· Bus Mastering should only be enabled for specific hard drive models
that are certified by their manufacturer to work properly with a
Windows bus master driver.
· The drives in question must indicate that they support DMA in the
drive ID data (both ATA and ATAPI drives).
Go to the System Control Panel, Device Manager, select the individual
Disk Drive (not drive controller), and select Properties. If a
checkbox for DMA shows up under the Int13, then you can try the Bus
Master DMA transfers. If no checkbox appears, then your motherboard
chipset does not support a compatible bus master interface. If the
checkbox is not checked after your system reboots, then your hard
drive probably does not support bus mastering, and it has been
automatically disabled again.
CD-ROM-Changers
CD ROM Changer support is now available for ATAPI-CD-Changer compliant
CD ROM drives with up to 6 CD slots. CD ROM devices with more than 6
slots are generally considered "CD Jukeboxes" and are not supported
with these drivers. This driver set also includes support for the
Sanyo/Torisan 3CD changer.
Note:
· There is one known issue, regarding the new CD+ format. CD+ at
present only works properly on the first assigned drive letter. CD+
audio will not be recognized on CD+ discs in slots not assigned to the
first drive letter (eg, on a system that has letters assigned to D:,
E:, F:, and G:, CD+ audio will only play on drive D:. This does not
affect standard Audio CDs.
CD Disk Driver
CDFS.VXD and CDVSD.VXD have been updated as follows:
· ISO-9660 format CDs greater than 4GB in size are now supported
· CDFS Read ahead behavior is now more intelligent, to better support
slower hardware and applications that access the CD randomly
· CDI disks are now supported (with appropriate application software)
Monitors
We've added approximately 175 new monitors to the built-in list.
Human Input (Keyboard, Joystick, Mice, Gamepad)
Look for new drivers built-in for these devices in the next beta
release.
Still Image Capture
Look for new drivers built-in for these devices in the next beta
release.
Video Capture
Look for new drivers built-in for these devices in the next beta
release.
IrDA Device Drivers and Utilities
Originally in OSR-1
Support for Fast Infrared (FIR) and Serial Infrared (SIR) devices,
easy file transferring over Infrared and LAN connectivity.
This beta release includes infrared support up to 4Mbps. It includes
the Microsoft Infrared Transfer applet that makes file transferring
over infrared as simple as click and send. To enable infrared
support, perform the following setup steps:
1. Go to Control Panel
2. Start Add New Hardware
3. Select "No" when the Add New Hardware wizard prompts whether you
want the system to automatically detect any new hardware, and click on
Next.
4. Select "Infrared" device and click on Next.
5. When the wizard prompts you to choose a manufacturer's name for
your IR device, choose "Microsoft (Standard Infrared Serial Port)" if
you have a computer with a SIR infrared device, or choose the name of
the manufacturer and the model of the computer if you have an FIR
device.
For SIR device:
1. If you have a SIR device, choose "Generic Infrared Port" for
build-in infrared port; or choose the name of the manufacturer and the
model of the adapter if you have an external Infrared adapter
connected to your computer.
2. When the wizard prompts you to choose the communications port that
the IR device is physically connected to, click the port from the
list. If you are not certain which physical communications port the IR
device is using, make your best guess.
3. When you are done with the wizard, click the Finish button to
complete the IR device installation. The wizard should have briefly
displayed New Hardware Found messages. If the wizard did not display
these messages, then restart the computer.
4. Activate the IR device by clicking the Start button, pointing to
Settings, and then clicking Control Panel. Double-click the Infrared
icon. If you chose the correct port in Step 4, the Infrared Monitor
interface screen appears. If you did not choose the correct port, a
message appears telling you that the port you have chosen is being
used by another program. Click OK. Right click on the Network
Neighborhood icon on desktop and choose Properties. Select "Standard
Infrared Serial (COM) port" and click on Properties. Click on
"Advanced" tab, and select "Serial Port" to change the COM port
settings. Repeat this step until you have chosen the correct port.
For FIR device:
1. If you have a FIR device, contact your hardware manufacture to get
the driver for that model of the computer. Click on "Have Disk…" to
install the FIR driver supplied by the manufacturer on a floppy disk.
2. When you are done with the wizard, click the Finish button to
complete the IR device installation. The wizard should have briefly
displayed New Hardware Found messages. If the wizard did not display
these messages, then restart the computer.
3. Activate the IR device by clicking the Start button, pointing to
Settings, and then clicking Control Panel. Double-click the Infrared
icon.
Microsoft Infrared Transfer
To use the Microsoft Infrared Transfer, simply right clicking on the
file you want to transfer and select "Send to->Infrared Recipient".
Under the Hood
There have been quite a few ongoing changes "under the hood" that you
can't really see. I've listed a few here for lack of a better place.
Registry Improvements
New for Memphis
We've rewritten the registry handling code to be faster and improve
robustness. The in-memory data structures are more optimized. You
won't see any changes in the registry structure as exposed through the
APIs or Regedit. But how it's handled in code has been significantly
improved.
Power Management
Power management improvements throughout the system in User, device
drivers, network stacks, and many other places should improve the
power performance, and enable the ACPI machines to work even better.
Internet
Internet Explorer
Memphis will include Internet Explorer 4. However, we have not yet
integrated the new Internet components into the product. In the
meantime, we are including the same Internet Explorer 3, which shipped
in OSR-2. IE 3 advanced the state of the art for web browser
technology with support for Frames, ActiveX components, Visual Basic
Script, Java, JavaScript, Netscape Plug-ins, HTML 3.2, Cascading Style
Sheets and many more features.
For more information about Internet Explorer 3 please visit the web
site at:
http://www.microsoft.com/ie
Note: Microsoft has released an updated IE 3.01. Due to the
impending integration of IE 4, we have decided not to integrate IE
3.01. For your convenience, we have included IE 3.01 self-installing
EXE in the \betaonly directory on the CD. We recommend that you
install the IE 3.01 following a clean install, or if you have not
already downloaded it from the web.
Internet Mail and News
This release of Memphis contains the current release of Internet Mail
and Internet News. For more information about Internet Mail and
Internet News, including FAQs, links to newsgroups, bug reporting, and
other information, please visit our web site at:
http://www.microsoft.com/ie/imn/default.htm
NetMeeting
This release of Memphis contains the final release of Microsoft
NetMeeting v1.0 built-in. NetMeeting will work across either local
area networks, direct dial-up links or the Internet. NetMeeting
offers a unique combination of Internet Phone, Whiteboard, file
sharing, and application sharing that allows you to hold interactive
conferences with remote sites right on your desktop computer, with no
special hardware. NetMeeting is built around open industry standard
protocols, too.
The BETAONLY\NM20 directory of this Memphis CD contains NetMeeting
v2.0 Beta 2, which adds standards-based audio and video conferencing
and other enhancements, such as user interface improvements.
For more information about NetMeeting 1.0, including FAQs, links to
newsgroups, bug reporting, and other information, please visit our web
site at:
http://www.microsoft.com/netmeeting/
For more information about NetMeeting 2.0 Beta 2, please visit our web
site at:
http://www.microsoft.com/netmeeting/learn/betahome.htm
For direct newsgroup access, you can find NetMeeting discussions on:
Server: msnews.microsoft.com
Newsgroup: microsoft.public.internet.netmeeting (for
NetMeeting 1.0)
Newsgroup: microsoft.public.internet.netmeeting.beta (for NetMeeting
2.0 Beta 2)
Please report NetMeeting bugs directly to the NetMeeting team using
the web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/ie/support/msnetmtg.htm
Note on Application Sharing: In this release of Memphis, the
application sharing feature in NetMeeting 1.0 and NetMeeting 2.0 Beta
2 does not work.
Internet Connection Wizard
The Internet Connection Wizard (ICW) provides Windows users with all
the functionality necessary to get their desktop connected to the
Internet. With ICW installed, a user can easily configure their
machine for Internet communication, sign up for an account with any
participating Internet Service Provider of their choice, and setup any
custom software required by that provider.
If you do not currently have an Internet account, the Automatic mode
is a good way to choose an Internet Service Provider that offers a
flat monthly rate, which you may find useful while participating in
the Memphis beta program.
The ICW is automatically run when launching Internet Explorer or The
Microsoft Network icons the first time a new PC is booted or the first
time following an upgrade.
The Wizard consists of three options, "Automatic", "Manual" and
"Current".
· Automatic will configures your machine for dial-up access to the
Internet and enables you to sign-up for Internet access via an ISP
account using the Microsoft Referral Server program. If you sign up
for an account using the ICW and Referral server, you will be liable
for the charges imposed by the Service Provider.
· Manual uses an updated version of the Plus! pack Internet Setup
Wizard. This allows you to hand-configure your Internet settings for
use with an existing ISP or local area network.
Current will reset the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, and
allow you to manually configure your Internet Control Panel settings.
Shell, User and GDI
Plus! Features
We've incorporated the basic display enhancements included on the
"Plus!" tab in the display control panel such as Full Window Drag and
Font Smoothing. We've continued to call the tab "Plus!" so that
current users don't get confused and existing documentation doesn't
change. This is identical to what Windows NT 4.0 does.
· Full Window Drag
· Font Smoothing
· Wallpaper stretching
· Large Icons
· Hi-color icons
· Desktop Icon Changer
· Sliding Hiding Taskbar
Miscellaneous User/GDI enhancements
New for Memphis
There are a bunch of miscellaneous enhancements that don't really fall
well into any other category, but improve the overall product
usability.
· Accessibility - New Accessibility API support in GDI and User to
enable support helper applications for disabled computer users. This
includes support for screen readers, larger, high contrast font
displays, and others. For more information about Microsoft
Accessibility support, and for API information, please see:
http://microsoft.com/windows/enable
· Wheel Mouse Support - for the new Microsoft Intellimouse with the
wheel on top, this builds in support for applications that can take
advantage of it.
· Just rotating the wheel causes text to scroll several lines (default
3) per wheel detent.
· In Office97, rotating the wheel while holding down the Ctrl key will
zoom in or out (cause the document to be displayed larger or smaller).
· The wheel itself acts as a middle mouse button if pressed.
· By pressing the wheel button in a wheel-aware app (Office97/IE3),
you are then in "panning mode". This is indicated by the mouse cursor
changing to a special panning cursor. While panning mode is active,
just dragging the mouse forward or backward will cause the document to
auto-scroll. The speed at which the document scrolls is determined by
how far the mouse is dragged away from the position where panning mode
was enabled. To exit panning mode, just press any mouse button.
Not all software that has a scroll bar will work with the wheel. In
order for the wheel to work in an app, one of two things must be true:
· The app must be rev'ed to handle the new WM_MOUSEWHEEL message.
Office97/IE3 are two examples of this.
· The app must use one of USER's built-in controls. The wheel will
work with Notepad because Notepad uses USER's edit control.
· Animation - including sliding menus and color highlights on menus
and controls to track the mouse position.
Image Color Matching 2.0 API
New for Memphis
Microsoft's first implementation of color management support was
released in the Microsoft® Windows® 95 operating system as ICM 1.0.
This version of ICM was designed to address the needs of applications
that do not work in colors outside of RGB (such as CMYK) and that want
color management to work fairly transparently for the end user. ICM
1.0 requires ICC profiles to be installed for all of the color devices
on the user's system, and it requires the application that wants to
accurately portray colors to the user to support the ICM 1.0 APIs.
After meetings with multiple industry leaders in the color field,
Microsoft has designed ICM 2.0. The new APIs are a complete superset
of the ICM 1.0 APIs and add a new range of capabilities:
o ICM 1.0 compatible
o ICC compliant
o Scalable: Simple APIs for applications such as Microsoft Office,
complete control for applications such as Adobe® PhotoShop®
o Same APIs for Windows 95 and Windows NT® operating systems
o Support for Profile management at API and UI level
o Bitmap v5 header support
o Standard Color Space support: sRGB
o Broader color space support: RGB, CMYK, LAB, and others
o Broader support for bitmap formats
o Improved palette handling
o Device driver participation on the Windows 95 and Windows NT
operating systems
o Support for multiple Color Management Modules (CMM)
o Faster default CMM that supports all ICC-compliant profiles
o Easier installation of profiles
This new version of ICM will be integrated in Memphis and Windows NT
5.0. For more information on ICM 2.0, please see the document in the
\betaonly\icm20 directory.
Display Control Panel Improvements
Originally in OSR-2, Multiple Display support New for Memphis.
The Display Control Panel has been enhanced to support new display
driver technology. It contains the following new features:
· QuickRes, the quick resolution switching utility, has been
incorporated into the standard control panel. There is a checkbox
that will turn on the taskbar notification icon for quick resolution
and color depth switching.
· DynaColor, the ability to switch display color depths, is now
included in the display control panel. (You still need a reboot if
you change "font size".) Many applications and display drivers will
work with this automatically, but some may need to be updated. Please
send us a bug if you find an application that does not update
properly. This feature is of great utility for game developers who
wish to use a specific color depth.
· Refresh Rate Support is now available from the Change Display
Adapter button. This support was built into the Windows 95 registry,
but only a few display adapter drivers support the refresh rate
setting. Contact your Display Adapter Vendor to get a refresh-rate
enabled display driver. Refresh rates are stored in a per-resolution
setting.
· Display Adapter Performance Slider is now accessible from the
Display Control Panel, instead of having to go to the System
Properties. This slider is used to diagnose and solve display driver
incompatibilities.
· Hardware Panning is now enabled on lower-resolution displays such as
VGA-only monitors or laptop LCD panels where the chipset supports it.
If your chipset supports this, and you have a monitor selected in the
Monitor settings that does not support greater than 800x600
resolution, hardware panning will be enabled. Hardware panning is
disabled on monitors capable of 1024x768 resolution as it is not
normally needed. If hardware panning is enabled, and the display
device is capable of 800x600, there are two graphics sliders - one for
the screen resolution and one for the virtual desktop resolution. The
screen slider is not shown for 640x480-only displays as it would be
fixed at one setting only.
· Multiple Display Support - if multiple displays are enabled, the
Settings tab is replaced with a Monitors tab. This Monitors tab
allows you to control relative screen placement by dragging, and to
set individual adapter settings as described above by selecting the
appropriate adapter.
Release Notes for Display CPL:
On some chipsets (older S3 chipsets such as 801 and Cirrus Laguna),
lower resolution modes may cause some older monitors to lose sync.
This is because the lower resolution modes are driving the pixel clock
too high. Try resetting your display settings to VGA settings (640 x
480 x 16 color), this may help.
Communications and Networking
Dial Up Networking and Dial Up Scripting
Originally in OSR-2
Dial Up Networking now includes built in Dial Up scripting. This is a
property sheet for each individual connection icon. Connection Icons
also include a separate tab for Server Type.
In the dial up networking folder, (the main folder, not the individual
icons), the Connections…Settings now supports the following options:
When Establishing a Dial Up Connection
· Show an icon on the taskbar after connected - controls whether the
notification area icon displays or not.
· Prompt for information before dialing - if unchecked, Dial Up
Networking will not stop to request a password or dialing location.
If you use your system from a fixed location, such as a home PC, this
saves a dialing step.
· Show Confirmation Dialog after connected - Shows connected data rate
and other information.
Redial Options
· Sets number of retries and wait time between retries if dial up
connection did not succeed on first try. Setting the automatic
reconnect with a short delay is useful for busy connections to large
banks of modems where redialing immediately is the best way to get
connected.
When establishing a network connection
· Prompt to use Dial-Up Networking settings - if a given networking
resource can not be located, the system will prompt if you want to
dial in to your network.
TAPI 2.0
New for Memphis
Jdecuir?
Unimodem/V
Unimodem was updated in OSR-1 to support VoiceView modems. Memphis
will add support for:
· Sierra modems (e.g. Prometheus, Motorola, VoiceSrfr, and some PC
systems).
· Spartacom modem pooling
· Denmark support
· Intel H.324 support
· Lucent controller-less modems
ISDN 1.1
New for Memphis
EdMitch?
NDIS 4.1
New for Memphis
Memphis adds support for NDIS 4.1. The primary change between NDIS
4.0 and NDIS 4.1 is native support for ATM (asynchronous transfer
mode) network cards. The standard NIC interfaces have not been
modified.
We encourage network card vendors to thoroughly test their existing
cards and drivers with the new NDIS 4.1 interface in a variety of
networking scenarios, and report any problems to Microsoft using the
Memphis bug reporting procedures.
ATM
New for Memphis
Memphis and Windows NT are adding native support for ATM (asynchronous
transfer mode) network cards. The NDIS 4.1 DDK Alpha release for
development and test of NDIS 4.1 ATM miniport drivers is currently
available. ATM network card vendors can request the NDIS 4.1 DDK
Alpha release by sending mail to atmfb@microsoft.com.
For more information, please see http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev (for
development issues) and http://www.microsoft.com/hwtest (for test
issues).
Winsock 2.0
New for Memphis
Winsock 2.0 drivers will be integrated into Memphis setup in the next
release. For now, however, if you want to test Winsock 2.0
applications, you can install the Winsock 2.0 drivers manually. We
have also included documentation on the new Winsock 2.0 APIs. For
more information, and to install the drivers, please see the
\betaonly\winsock2 directory, for the full Winsock 2.0 SDK.
Remote Access Server
Memphis Dial Up Networking includes the file rnaserv.dll, previously
included with Plus!, which enables remote network access using NETBEUI
or IPX protocols. You can enable the remote dial-up access from the
Dial Up Networking - Settings menu. Removing this DLL completely
removes this capability from a PC if necessary.
Microsoft Service for NetWare Directory Service (MS-NDS)
Originally in OSR-1
Microsoft Service for NetWare Directory Services (NDS) provides all
the functionality that Information Systems Professionals need to
connect to NDS servers and run many important utilities. Service for
NDS provides the following networking features to support computers
running on NetWare 4.x networks:
· integrated log-in to NetWare 4.x servers
· full support of NetWare 4.x login scripts
· the ability to use Network Neighborhood to browse the directory tree
· full support for 16-bit NDS-aware programs written for MS-DOS or
Windows using documented calls from the NetWare Client SDK
When the service is installed, it can be activated in the network
control panel by selecting Add - Service and choosing the Microsoft
Service for NetWare Directory Service. This is a supplement to the
standard Windows 95 NetWare client software.
Microsoft 32-bit DLC protocol stack
Originally in OSR-2
The Microsoft 32-bit DLC protocol stack upgrades the DLC protocol
stack that shipped in the original Windows 95 disks with a protect
mode implementation of the DLC protocol. This can be used to provide
enhanced connectivity and performance on Windows 95 systems.
Applets and Utilities
Backup
New for Memphis
The new Memphis backup applet adds support for parallel, IDE/ATAPI,
and SCSI devices. Devices supported include: QIC-80, QIC-80 Wide,
QIC-3010, QIC-3010 Wide, QIC-3020, QIC-3020 Wide, TR1, TR2, TR3, TR4,
DAT (DDS1&2), DC 6000, 8mm, and DLT. This includes drives branded by
Conner, Exabyte, HP/Colorado, Iomega, Micro Solutions, Seagate,
Tandberg, WangDAT, and Wangtek. In addition, the Memphis backup
applet supports backup up to floppy based and network drives.
Known Problems:
The new Backup applet in this Memphis beta does not support backup
files created by the current Windows95 backup applet. Future Memphis
beta will be backwards compatible, meaning that the new backup applet
will be able to restore files backed up by the old backup applet as
included in Windows 95 release.
If you have already installed the Windows 95 backup application, the
new Memphis backup will "take over" the backup shortcut. If you need
to restore files using the older backup utility, you can directly run
the executable file from:
C:\program files\accessories\backup.exe
We recommend, however, that as soon as Memphis is successfully
installed, you back up your system using the new backup application.
Internet Update Manager
New for Memphis
Brianem?
Web-based Bug Submission
New for Memphis
Brianem?
Dr. Watson
Originally in OSR-2; Significantly Updated for Memphis
Brianem?
Calc
The Calculator application had minor bug-fixes and improvements for
Windows NT 4.0. We have picked up that version for Memphis. Please
test and let us know if there are any problems.
Windows Scripting
New for Memphis
Windows gets Scripting built-in. With the Memphis and NT 5 releases,
we will be supporting direct script execution from the shell or the
command line. We include direct support for Visual Basic Scripting
(VBScript) and JavaScript. The scripting host, however, is extensible
to additional language by third parties.
Internet Explorer 3 installs an ActiveX control that interprets VBS
and JavaScript. Memphis will include the "Windows Scripting Host"
which is just a simple executable that provides a direct interface
into the scripting ActiveX controls.
Windows Scripting Host: A Shell-based Host for Integrated Scripting in
Windows
The Windows Scripting Host (WSH) is a language-independent scripting
host for 32-bit Windows platforms. Microsoft provides both Visual
Basic® Script and Java Script scripting engines with WSH. Microsoft
anticipates that other software companies will provide ActiveX™
scripting engines for other languages such as Perl, TCL, REXX, and
Python.
WSH can be run from either the Windows-based host (WSCRIPT.EXE), or
the command shell-based host (CSCRIPT.EXE). When you double click on
a .