[comp.sys.novell] WIN3/NetWare: unable to load command.com

mcphil@uncmed.med.unc.edu (02/22/91)

We have an odd situation here.  A PS/2 model 55sx with 2 megs ram, DOS
ver 4.00, and Novell netware 386 on a token ring.  All runs smoothly
untill you quit windows while still mapped to a network search drive.
INVALAID COMMAND.COM
System halted  
It should be noted that windows resides on the ps-2 hard drive, it works
fine when connected (but not logged in) to the network, and the correct
DOS versions are on the PS-2 and the Network drive (the loggin script
sets the comspec to the first search drive, mapped to the dos version
on the server).  Non windows applications run outside of windows run
fine as well.  What gives?  Any suggestions would be muchly appreciated.

Philip McNamara
McPhil@MED.UNC.EDU

jims@svcs1.UUCP (Jim Serwer) (03/05/91)

In article <2705@beguine.UUCP> mcphil@uncmed.med.unc.edu () writes:
>We have an odd situation here.  A PS/2 model 55sx with 2 megs ram, DOS
>ver 4.00, and Novell netware 386 on a token ring.  All runs smoothly
>untill you quit windows while still mapped to a network search drive.
>INVALAID COMMAND.COM
>System halted  
  . . . 
>Philip McNamara
>McPhil@MED.UNC.EDU


I an using NetWare 286 ELS II, so anything I say may not
be relevant to you.  My workstation shell is NET3.

The solution seems to be to add a few parameters to the
COMSPEC.  I use:

       set COMSPEC=c:command.com c:\ /e:512

My understanding is that NET3 clobbers the NUL terminator on
the COMSPEC when it is a certain length.  The purpose of the
parameters is create a larger ram buffer for the COMSPEC and
move the NUL over a few bytes.

This gives rise to a new, but less-serious problems.  Some
programs cannot handle the parameters when you try to execute
a DOS command in a sub-shell.  Something I have tried recently,
is to set the COMSPEC as above before running NET3.  Then I
set COMSPEC back to "c:command.com" immediately afterwards.  I
have not crashed yet, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Jim Serwer
jims%svcs1@mips.com