ro@rrz.uni-koeln.de (Jochen Roderburg) (06/12/91)
To: NOVELL@SUVM, comp.sys.novell We are about to change a local PC network from 3COM to Novell and have encountered a strange problem with data paths. We have Netware 3.10 and the latest Netware Shells (v3.02). The clients involved are a group of AT compatibles with IBM-DOS 3.3 and a group of PS/2s (Model 70) with IBM-DOS 4.0. As we have some of those silly programs in use which are not able to locate their data files themselves we need a data path utility like DOS APPEND or the good old freeware DPATH. This worked fine for years in the 3COM environment, but seems to be much more difficult with Novell. First we had a problem with Windows printing in 386 enhanced mode, which could be solved by placing the data path utility before the Netware programs (I reported this case in separate postings). But when we load one of those utilities before Novell they locate files only on local drives, not on Netware drives, where our files reside. Then we discovered the Netware search drives and the utility SMODE, which seems to solve the data path problem in the Novell way, if we didn't completely misunderstand the description. This mechanism is even more flexible, because it allows to set data path parameters globally in SHELL.CFG and individual for single programs. But..... we couldn't get this to work either, at least not with a normal program. We can persuade Novell's CAPTURE program to find it's configuration, so I have the suspicion that this feature needs explicit programming and is not a general data path facility in the sense of APPEND and DPATH. Btw, the SMODE program itself seems to be full of bugs: the simple call SMODE filename doesn't work, it always wants some sort of wildcards like SMODE file.*, but even this variation is not accepted in every situation. Can any one shed some more light on this SMODE behaviour or has any other ideas for the original problem? Jochen Roderburg Regional Computing Center University of Cologne Robert-Koch-Str. 10 Tel.: +49-221/470-4564 D-5000 Koeln 41 Internet: Ro @ RRZ.Uni-Koeln.DE Germany BITNET: A0045 @ DK0RRZK1