Ok, Ok, I know this is a short article this month.  I am in the same 
boat as Mike Jordan in that I am trying to get my software ready for the show.  
Not only am I trying out a new concept by putting completely registered 
working copies of my doors on disk but I am also in the process of lable 
making and copying.  It's a chore but I hope to reap the benefits!

        I am an avid reader of Jerry Pournelle each month in Byte magazine.  
I love the crazy stuff he gets into at Chaos Manor.  I recently found myself 
in the same type of situation here at the Chaotic Keep.  So I thought I would 
tell you about it.

        I basically use two computers to run my support BBS phone lines, 
online credit card stuff and to program and word process with.  I multitask 
the BBS computer under OS/2 warp and love it.  I also use a Lantastic peer 
to peer network that I occasionally hook my lap top into along with the BBS 
computer and programming/general purpose computer.

        I decided the other day to go totally with OS/2 software on the BBS 
computer.  I am running an OS/2 BBS package and since all the other BBS 
related programs that I use are OS/2 software I decided to reformat the BBS 
computer's hard drive to take advantage of OS/2's HPFS (high performance 
file system).

        Up to this point, I have always kept a copy of DOS on my BBS computer 
because it contains my tape drive back up unit.  I use Norton backup
software for the tape drive because it came with it.  The back up 
software would not run well under OS/2 (file sharing problems while backing 
up) so I ran it under DOS.  This time, however, I had to be different so I 
backed up using the Lan to my programming computer.  It has a huge hard drive 
and I thought it would be faster.  So like a dummy I back up everything from 
my BBS computer to the programming computer, FDISK the hard drive and reformat 
for OS/2's HPFS.  I reinstall OS/2 and get it back up on the network using 
Lantastic for OS/2, which by the way I love!  Then I go over to my 
programming computer (the one with the backup on it) and get the Norton 
backup software running.  This is where the big problem started.  Although 
the backup was stored on the hard drive ok, all the control files were on 
the drive I originally ran the Norton backup program from.  YES, the very 
same drive I had just reformatted and installed OS/2 on!

        Ok, I tell myself calm down it's only a hobby.  On tape I have a 
backup from about a month ago, which has all the essential programs and data 
on it which I need to get the BBS back up, but if you are a sysop then you 
know how many changes take place in a month. I'm very frustrated at this 
point because I have a backup!  I can see it on my other hard drive but 
Norton refuses to look at it without these damned control files it keeps 
beeping me about.  Anyway I do a restore from tape and get back most of 
things I changed during the month.  While messing around with my new setup, 
I notice it seems slower then when I was using the FAT file system and OS/2.  
So now I'm sitting here thinking that the whole thing was nothing and I 
didn't even learn a lesson from it because I did everything correct but 
failed to take into consideration that Norton might not run exactly the way 
I think it should.  I am still puzzled about the whole thing because Norton 
always stored the necessary control files on the tape or disks that I used.  
Why didn't it store in on the other computers hard drive?

        At this point I am pissed and just to spite IBM I decide to go back 
to running all my stuff under Windows.  I had a copy of Windows for work 
groups which I never got around to installing.  Up to this point I was using 
straight Windows 3.1.  I install windows on my programming computer for a 
test run.  I am not up to taking the BBS back down at this point so I leave 
that computer alone to see how this goes.  The funny part is that Lantastic 
always worked well with Windows 3.1 but I can't get it working with Windows 
for work groups?  What the hell?   Isn't WFWG mainly for networks?  It 
doesn't see or want to play with Lantastic version 5.  I search for a missing 
driver or DLL, no such luck!  This is more ridiculous then the OS/2 HPFS 
slowing my computer down!  Now I'm MORE pissed at Microsoft and wonder If I 
should just go back to straight DOS and run everything under my Lan.  Nah, I 
have been spoiled running OS/2, being able to run my BBS and read my messages 
at the same time.  Which I could do from a Lan, but only being able to do one 
thing at a time on a computer would put me to sleep.

        Well, I have to get back to my real job.  I promise a much longer and 
more in depth article next month.

Dave.Wendling@berkhill.berk.com
1:332/107
Support BBS 413.684.0145
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