Minisoft Secure92 FAQs

1. When I have the Print Driver set to Windows Default I get my screen print. When I change it to Pass Through Printing I don’t get anything.
2. I have the Print Driver set to Pass Through Printing but I don’t get any output when printing from my host application. When I select Windows Default I get the printout but the formatting is wrong.
3. How do I configure a Serial Connection in MS92 for Windows?
4. How do I paste text from MS92 into an Excel spreadsheet?
5. How do I upload large ASCII files?
6. How do I eliminate the Splash screen?
7. How do I limit MS92 to one session?
8. How do I eliminate the Splash screen and limit MS92 to one session at the same time?

1. When I have the Print Driver set to Windows Default I get my screen print. When I change it to Pass Through Printing I don’t get anything.

When you select Pass Through Printing the print output is sent directly to the printer. A lot of the inexpensive printers on the market today no longer have any internal fonts built into them. They are relying on the Windows print driver to supply the font information. With these printers Pass Through Printing will not work. You have to use Windows Default or upgrade your printer to one that has internal fonts.

2. I have the Print Driver set to Pass Through Printing but I don’t get any output when printing from my host application. When I select Windows Default I get the printout but the formatting is wrong.

As mentioned above, when you use Pass Through Printing the print output is sent directly to the printer. This includes all printer escape sequences sent by the host application. When you use Windows Default as your Print Driver these escape sequences are ignored and not sent to the printer.

3. Configuring a Serial Connection in MS92 for Windows

During high speed serial communication between software running under Windows and a host computer, you may experience serial communications errors (known as Sercom errors). Most commonly, you may experience such errors while you are dialing into a host computer, since the modem connection is serial. There are several things you can do to alleviate these problems:

• Verify the flow control settings in MS92 for Windows. Go to Configuration, Comms and Network. Both XON/XOFF items should be checked (enabled).
• If you use a software driver for sound on your PC, enable interrupts. To enable interrupts for your software sound driver or check to see if you are using one:
  1. Go to the Control Panel in Windows.
  2. Double-click the Drivers icon.
  3. Highlight the Sound Driver for PC-Speaker driver.
  4. In the PC-Speaker Setup dialog box, select the option for enabling interrupts during playback.
  5. If the PC-Speaker entry exists and you do not see a check box for enable interupts, you must either update the driver or remove it.
• Upgrade to (or enable) a 16550 UART. Many new PCs have this type of UART, but it is not enabled.
• Check your current UART status using the Microsoft Diagnostic program (MSD.EXE) provided with Windows. To use the MSD program:From a DOS prompt, type MSD and press Enter.Select COM Ports. A screen displays the UARTs installed on your computer. If none of the UARTs displayed is a 16550, you may need to upgrade. Consult your computer dealer.
• To enable the serial buffer in the 16550, modify the SYSTEM.INI file to include the following line in the [386Enh] section (the sample assumes port two):COM2FIFO=1 You may see a value of YES or TRUE. These are not valid and should be replaced with the numeric one.
• To increase the processing time allocated to the serial port, modify the SYSTEM.INI file to include the following line in the [386Enh] section:COMBoostTime=8 The default is two. Try other values until a good balance is made on your system.
• Install a third-party application for improving serial communications with 16550 UARTs, such as TurboCom, COMM56, CYBERCOM 1.14, or WINFAX comm driver. The primary advantage of these drivers is to enable interupts to the CPU with a smaller number of characters in the receive buffer. By default, the Windows driver will notify the CPU when it has 14 characters in a 16 character buffer. This allows the CPU only two characters of time to start servicing the UART.
• If you are using Windows for Workgroups, there is an updated SERIAL.386 driver to correct problems when using the 16550 UART.
• Windows 95 has advanced support for the 16550 UART built in. You may need todecrease the receive buffer value. This will cause the UART to interupt the CPU with more space left for additonal characters.
• Limit the number of active applications on your computer while you are online. The more programs you have open, the less processing time Windows has to deal with the information being retrieved by your modem.
• Limit the number of disk-intensive processes on your computer while you are online. If Windows has to keep reading your disk, it has less time to deal with the information being retrieved by your modem.
• Reduce your communication speed. In the Configuration menu, go to Configuration, Comms and Network, and select a slower speed.
• Decrease the processing time needed for screen updates:
• Obtain an updated driver for your video adapter.
• Decrease the number of colors to 256 or fewer. Go to Windows Setup and choose a driver with no more than 256 colors.
• Decrease the screen resolution. Go to Windows Setup and choose a resultion of 640×480 or 800×600.

4. How to paste text from MS92 into an Excel spreadsheet.

• In MS92, select and copy the data to be pasted.
• Call up Excel, and select the starting column and row.
• Paste the data into Excel. Leave all the rows in the first column selected.
• In the Data menu, select the Text to Columns item. Select Delimited. Click the Next button.
• Check Space, and check Treat Consecutive Delimiters As One. Click the Next button.

5. Uploading large ASCII files.

Prior to version 2.0.5.6, WS92LINK (and all versions of MS92LINK) defaulted to a maximum ASCII file size of 50,000 records. With version 2.0.5.6 and later, you may upload ASCII files of any size without special file equations.

To determine the version of WS92LINK, type the following at your system console:

VERSION WS92LINK.PUB.SYS

In the following example, the version of WS92LINK is 2.0.5.7 :

VERSION C.60.00 Copyright (C) Hewlett-Packard 1987. All Rights Reserved.

WS92LINK.PUB.SYS

SOM #1
@(#) HP30315 A.05.11 98/07/15 NRT0 Startup routine
WS92LINK – 2.0.5.7
FTSUBS – 2.0.5.5
FTFILIO – 2.0.5.5

MAX STACK SIZE: 393216
MAX HEAP SIZE: 81920000
CAPABILITIES: BA,IA
UNSAT PROC NAME:
ENTRY NAME:
LIBRARY SEARCH LIST:

To upload large ASCII files (greater than 50,000 records) with an older version of the host upload program, use a file equation in the format of: FILE filename;DISC=# of records. For example:

FILE MYFILE;DISC=75000

The file equation must be entered at the MPE prompt prior to starting the file transfer.

6. How do I eliminate the Splash Screen?

Rename WS92_32.EXE to: WS92_32Q.EXE

7. How do I limit MS92 to one session?

Rename WS92_32.EXE to: WS92_32S.EXE

8. How do I eliminate the Splash Screen and limit MS92 to one session at the same time?

Rename WS92_32.EXE to: WS92_32QS.EXE