[comp.os.msdos.apps] Asking advice on Nortons 5.0

jan@enea.se (Jan Wester) (02/28/91)

 Sorry Timo Salmi but this is an answer to a question made in this newsgroup.
 Therefore I take it here.
 
 And I have scanned comp.msdos.apps to see if it is a newsgroup for dos 
 applications really.
 
 There were very few articles discussing commercial products and there was
 a discussion about 4dos which is partially shareware, delievered in 
 comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d so I think it is very floating what belongs here
 and there to people. 
 
 I think it would be better to have ONE group for this!
 
 But over to Norton 5.0. Yes I have tried it and I agree with Otto J. Makela
 The principle of combining several programs into one is not good and this
 menuing shit....
 
 I think of ts which in Norton 5.0 is useless.
 I want ts to work like grep in unix and I have up to now been using both.
 I use grep when I want to see which files are interesting for the string and
 ts when I want to locate where in the file the interesting part is.
 I do not want to have this over-coat of going in and out of several programs
 to this.
 
 I have a suggestion, sell Norton Utilities in two versions, Norton Utilities
 and Norton Utilities Advanced.
 
 And let the difference be that Norton Utilities is for the menu freaks and
 Norton Utilities Advanced is for us programmers.
 
 And why is lp gone in version 5.0 ? And if you want it you have to save lp
 from release 4.5
 But what about all that people that do not have 4.5 ????????
 
 ##########################################################################
 #                                                                        #
 # JAN WESTER                           E-mail address : jan@enea.se      #
 # ENEA DATA                                                              #
 # Stockholm Sweden                                                       #
 #                                                                        #
 ##########################################################################
 
 
This article was originally found in comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d but I was
requested to move it to this group so that is why you find it here too! 

tmyers@athena.mit.edu (Tracy S Myers) (03/01/91)

In article <2705@enea.se> jan@enea.se (Jan Wester) writes:
>
> But over to Norton 5.0. Yes I have tried it and I agree with Otto J. Makela
> The principle of combining several programs into one is not good and this
> menuing shit....
> 
> I think of ts which in Norton 5.0 is useless.

Not to mention ff which used to be a great quick program when I did not want to
use the unix-like find utility I have.  In version 5 I find it horribly 
bogged down in menus. 

I retained ff from version 4.5 as well as several of the other information
utilities like fs.  I used to really like the utilities because they were
quick to use and convenient to run.  By lumping them together like they have
destroyed the utility of the package.  Now version 5.0 is just as cumbersome
as most of the similar functions performed by PC Tools in PCShell. Too bad.


> # JAN WESTER                           E-mail address : jan@enea.se      #
> # ENEA DATA                                                              #
> # Stockholm Sweden                                                       #

Tracy Myers

tporczyk@na.excelan.com (Tony Porczyk) (03/06/91)

The News Manager)
Nntp-Posting-Host: na
Reply-To: tporczyk@na.excelan.com (Tony Porczyk)
Organization: Standard Disclaimer
References: <12385.27b6f0b4@ecs.umass.edu> <OTTO.91Feb14130151@tukki.jyu.fi> <2639@enea.se> <2705@enea.se>
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1991 02:59:06 GMT

In article <2705@enea.se> jan@enea.se (Jan Wester) writes:
> But over to Norton 5.0. Yes I have tried it and I agree with Otto J. Makela
> The principle of combining several programs into one is not good and this
> menuing shit....

I tried Norton 5.0. I was lucky I didn't overwrite the Norton 4.5 installation
so I didn't have to reinstall it. Norton 5.0 is a joke. If I want cutsy shells
and lots of useless overhead, I'll buy Cute Tools. I have a feeling we should
say bye-bye to Norton Utilities after the buyout by Symantec. What will be
next?  Norton Commander will go graphical?  John Socha - are you going to
write something fast and useful to bring back the memory of the old Norton
stuff?  Say yes....

Tony

csw72@seq1.keele.ac.uk (D.J. Hulewicz) (03/15/91)

In article <1991Mar1.025906.21936@novell.com>, tporczyk@na.excelan.com (Tony Porczyk) writes:
> 
> I tried Norton 5.0. I was lucky I didn't overwrite the Norton 4.5 installation
> so I didn't have to reinstall it. Norton 5.0 is a joke. If I want cutsy shells
> and lots of useless overhead, I'll buy Cute Tools. I have a feeling we should
> say bye-bye to Norton Utilities after the buyout by Symantec. What will be
> next?  Norton Commander will go graphical?  John Socha - are you going to
> write something fast and useful to bring back the memory of the old Norton
> stuff?  Say yes....
> 
> Tony

I agree, the good ol' two letter abbreviations for the commands were the best.
At times I find it very difficult to remember how to get to a certain command.

Simple functions like VL (volume label) are now hidden away within other
programs and are hard to find. The disk editor is very complicated and far too
flashy. However, on the plus side, I do find Disk Doctor II very useful and
DiskFix seems to out-perform the other utilities on success rates.
I'm sure you would agree that UnErase is much easier to use in it's new menu
form, and many new commands have been added to make the Batch-Enhancer more
powerful.

I have noticed a small bug in FileFind. When you go to the change attributes
menu and move over to the right hand side of the menu, multiple mouse pointers
appear.

Is it just my copy that does this, or is it a bug in Norton 5.0 ?

Dominic.

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rdippold@maui.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) (03/19/91)

In article <949@keele.keele.ac.uk> csw72@seq1.keele.ac.uk (D.J. Hulewicz) writes:
>Simple functions like VL (volume label) are now hidden away within other
>programs and are hard to find. The disk editor is very complicated and far too
>flashy. However, on the plus side, I do find Disk Doctor II very useful and
>DiskFix seems to out-perform the other utilities on success rates.
>I'm sure you would agree that UnErase is much easier to use in it's new menu
>form, and many new commands have been added to make the Batch-Enhancer more
>powerful.

I generally agree.  However, there were some cases where I found the Norton
5 programs preferable.  SpeedDisk, for example.  And in certain cases I can
really use the added functionality of the Norton 5.0 filefinder.  So I kept
them both... FF for Norton 4.5 and FIND for the Norton 5.  The diskfix is
better, as well.  Basicially, I found that:  If it was a menued program in
4.5, the 5.0 version is better; and if it was a command line program in 4.5,
they made it menued in 5.0, and it's a pain in the ass.

>I have noticed a small bug in FileFind. When you go to the change attributes
>menu and move over to the right hand side of the menu, multiple mouse pointers
>appear.
>
>Is it just my copy that does this, or is it a bug in Norton 5.0 ?

Well, Norton 5.02 is out, so they found some bugs...

orenalex@bimacs.BITNET (oren alex) (03/20/91)

Tried to use SD 5.0 on my system (dos 4.01, qemm, 4dos, super-pc-kwik)
Still looking for some of the files, others got *really* messed up
90% of the disk is ok - so it does not seem to be a cache problem.
Any help?

Alex.

roth@pdntg1.paradyne.com (Mike Rothman) (03/22/91)

In article <3068@bimacs.BITNET> orenalex@bimacs.UUCP (oren alex) writes:
>
>Tried to use SD 5.0 on my system (dos 4.01, qemm, 4dos, super-pc-kwik)
>Still looking for some of the files, others got *really* messed up
>90% of the disk is ok - so it does not seem to be a cache problem.
>Any help?
>
>Alex.

Did you reboot after you used SD?  If you were running any kind of memory/disk
cache, it COULD HAVE messed up SOME files.......the question is, did you reboot
and did you have a cache installed

If so, that's the problem

orenalex@bimacs.BITNET (oren alex) (03/24/91)

In article <1991Mar21.203934.12497@pdn.paradyne.com> roth@pdntg1.paradyne.com (Mike Rothman) writes:
>In article <3068@bimacs.BITNET> orenalex@bimacs.UUCP (oren alex) writes:
>>
>>Tried to use SD 5.0 on my system (dos 4.01, qemm, 4dos, super-pc-kwik)
>>Still looking for some of the files, others got *really* messed up
>>90% of the disk is ok - so it does not seem to be a cache problem.
>
>Did you reboot after you used SD?  If you were running any kind of memory/disk
>cache, it COULD HAVE messed up SOME files.......the question is, did you reboot
>and did you have a cache installed
>
>If so, that's the problem

super-pc-kwik *is* a cache (a damn good one...)
1) i did use a cache and i did-not reboot. However - using the same
   configuration with SD 4.5 works just fine (but i want to use 5.0 ...)
2) some friends of mine got their files nuked also - no cache, just
   plain buffers.
3) some talk on bbs'es implied that this is a global problem (bug)
   norton's guys were notified but they refused to acknowledge this.

roth@pdntg1.paradyne.com (Mike Rothman) (03/27/91)

In article <3106@bimacs.BITNET> orenalex@bimacs.UUCP (oren alex) writes:
>In article <1991Mar21.203934.12497@pdn.paradyne.com> roth@pdntg1.paradyne.com (Mike Rothman) writes:
>>In article <3068@bimacs.BITNET> orenalex@bimacs.UUCP (oren alex) writes:
>>>
>>>Tried to use SD 5.0 on my system (dos 4.01, qemm, 4dos, super-pc-kwik)
>>>Still looking for some of the files, others got *really* messed up
>>>90% of the disk is ok - so it does not seem to be a cache problem.
>>
>>Did you reboot after you used SD?  If you were running any kind of memory/disk
>>cache, it COULD HAVE messed up SOME files.......the question is, did you reboot
>>and did you have a cache installed
>>
>>If so, that's the problem
>
>super-pc-kwik *is* a cache (a damn good one...)
>1) i did use a cache and i did-not reboot. However - using the same
>   configuration with SD 4.5 works just fine (but i want to use 5.0 ...)
>2) some friends of mine got their files nuked also - no cache, just
>   plain buffers.
>3) some talk on bbs'es implied that this is a global problem (bug)
>   norton's guys were notified but they refused to acknowledge this.

Well, here is the reasoning of why it SHOULD NOT work if you have a buffer/cache

etc etc etc.....

1)  What Norton is doing is loading all the clusters associated with data and
    simply moving it from one area to another.

2)  At times, there will be information that is left in your cache/buffer
    pertaining to a specific cluster.  When the cache/buffer gets full it
    dumps it to disk.  NOTE:  A single cluster can nuke SEVERAL files if
    "Lost"  

3)  After having done its moving of clusters and if there is a presence of
    a cache/buffer there is a very good potential of having some information
    still hanging in memory somewhere that has NOT been written to the hard-
    drive.  Norton after completion should give you a Red-Screen asking if
    you want to Reboot or Exit the session.  The recommended route is to 
    ALWAYS reboot.  Especially if you are in doubt of the status of your
    cache/buffer.  That is the reason for the RED screen

I hope this explains the whys and wherefores.....

cd5340@mars.njit.edu (David Charlap) (03/28/91)

In article <1991Mar26.184148.4412@pdn.paradyne.com> roth@pdntg1.paradyne.com (Mike Rothman) writes:

>    NOTE:  A single cluster can nuke SEVERAL files if "Lost"  

Huh?  A cluster is DOS's smallest allocation unit.  A cluster can
belong only to one file.  How can losing one affect a file that wasn't
pointing to it?  If multiple files point to the same cluster, you have
a symptom known as the "cross-linked" file.  Norton's SD will refuse to
go on if it finds one - you should run NDD to fix this.  NEVER use
CHKDSK /F, as you will lose all the files that are cross-linked to
the problematic cluster.

Perhaps that's what you meant.  I know of several times where DOS's
CHKDSK command has given me problems.  That's why I don't ever use
it.  NDD does much more, and it won't trash something without first
warning you and giving you a chance to back out.  I hear that NDD
version 5.0 will even allow you to undo something if it dies on
you.  (Don't ask me how, I can't figure it out...)
--
David Charlap                   "Invention is the mother of necessity"
cd5340@mars.njit.edu            "Necessity is a mother"
Operators are standing by	"mother!" - Daffy Duck

linwood@cbnewsk.att.com (linwood.d.johnson) (03/29/91)

In article <1991Mar28.052202.28933@njitgw.njit.edu> cd5340@mars.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:
>In article <1991Mar26.184148.4412@pdn.paradyne.com> roth@pdntg1.paradyne.com (Mike Rothman) writes:
>
>>    NOTE:  A single cluster can nuke SEVERAL files if "Lost"  
>
>NDD does much more, and it won't trash something without first
>warning you and giving you a chance to back out.  I hear that NDD
>version 5.0 will even allow you to undo something if it dies on
>you.  (Don't ask me how, I can't figure it out...)

It asks you to place a floppy in so that it can store the data there
before it makes any changes.  And you can restore from that floppy
later if you didn't like what it did.

-- 
| Linwood D. Johnson       |  linwood@ihlpf.att.com                 |
| AT&T Bell Labs, 1000 E. Warrenville Rd., Naperville, IL 60566     |
| Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are mine and mine only.       |
|             Besides, who else would want them?                    |