Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms

     Here is a list of the problems and issues that I encountered while
upgrading to Windows 3.1.  Maybe it'll save someone some trouble.  I've
also included some rumors that I've heard (if they're wrong, I hope that
someone corrects me) ....

* Installing or upgrading to Windows 3.1 seems to be either painless or
  VERY PAINFUL (I certainly found it very painful).  People who
  install/upgrade are either very happy or on their way to the funny farm.
  If Windows 3.1 doesn't work for you, be prepared for a fight.  Make sure
  you have a backup of your old Windows 3.0 directory, etc. before taking
  the plunge; that way, you can always go back.

* If you have a SCSI drive, you may want to use the old Windows 3.0
  version of SMARTDRV.  With my Adaptec 1542A SCSI controller, using
  the Windows 3.1 version of SMARTDRV actually significantly slowed down
  my system.  Although MSDOS was slow, Windows 3.1 ran perhaps 3-10
  TIMES SLOWER with the 3.1 SMARTDRV (can you say "molasses in ..."?).
  I went back to using the Windows 3.0 version of SMARTDRV with Windows
  3.1, and everything seems to work (it's been two days, and my disks
  don't seem to be corrupted ... ;-).

  In addition to setting the usual VirtualHDIRQ=FALSE in system.ini (for
  the Adaptec 1542 controller), you may also have to place something like
  the following in your system.ini file, in the [386Enh] section:

	EMMExclude=A000-CFFF

  (The above range is probably larger than necessary; however, I haven't
  had the time to figure out the correct range, or if one is even needed.
  I think that this is needed only for third-party memory managers like
  QEMM 386, but I'm not sure.)

  People who have IDE drives do not seem to have a problem.  They can even
  turn on the 32-bit disk transfer mode and supposedly get even higher
  performance, as Windows 3.1 has a special IDE disk driver (fastdisk)
  that bypasses the ROM BIOS.  IDE drives will probably give much, much
  better "performance" than SCSI ones under Windows 3.1.  Sigh.

  People who use a third-party disk cache or ASPI4DOS do not seem to have
  a problem (but disk performance may not be as good as IDE drives).
  [ Out of curiosity, just how much does ASPI4DOS cost, and does anyone
  know of a reliable source (one that doesn't mind dealing with
  private individuals) for it?  ]

  If you do manage to use the new SMARTDRV, note that it does WRITE
  CACHING (unless you've disabled it).  This means that you cannot just
  turn off your PC when you're done with it; if you do, you risk losing
  data (hard disk data corruption?).  You have to execute a command to
  insure that the write cache is flushed out to disk.  Talk about
  Shades Of Things To Come ....

  SMARTDRV supposedly does caching at the DOS logical sector level, and
  not at the BIOS track/sector level.  Applications that work at a
  low-level will not see any caching (they will bypass the cache).

* If you have a Sigma Legend SVGA card, you might want to get the new
  Windows 3.1 Tseng ET4000 drivers.  I have a Sigma Legend (the original,
  not the Legend II), and I tried installing Windows 3.1 using the plain
  VGA (640x480) Windows drivers.  Unfortunately, these drivers do not seem 
  to work in enhanced mode -- with the old 3.1 drivers, Windows 3.1 either
  displayed garbage or worked erratically.  Wonderful.  Since I installed
  the new drivers, everything's been working fine for me (I have heard
  that the new ET4000 SVGA drivers cause problems on an IBM 8514 display --
  supposedly, the 8514 doesn't lock in the hi-res mode(s?) because the
  sync frequencies are slightly off, but I can't confirm this).

* I've got a Media Vision Pro AudioSpectrum Plus (a sound card), and the
  Windows 3.1 drivers that came with it actually appear to be newer than
  (or the same as) the ones in the Microsoft driver library on
  CompuServe.  This was a pleasant surprise.  The PAS works fine in
  Windows, but it stops working if you switch to a full-screen DOS
  session in Windows (I suppose that this is reasonable?).  [ As a side
  issue, does anyone know the difference between a Pro AudioSpectrum and
  a Pro AudioSpectrum Plus?  Is there one?  ]

* QEMM 386 6.0 does work with Windows 3.1.  I have QEMM 386 6.00 (not 6.01
  or 6.02), and it works.  In my config.sys file, I'm using:

    QEMM386.SYS R:1 on ST:M RAM ROM DISKBUF=2 DMA=128 EXCLUDE=B000-BFFF

  (I deleted the "DEVICE=" and path information to make everything fit in
  80 columns.)

  I have heard that versions of QEMM 386 older than 6.00 will not work.

* Windows 3.1 appears to be pushing the hardware envelope.  If you have
  marginal hardware, or undiscovered/unnoticed hardware conflicts,
  Windows will find them for you (by not working right ;-().  One person
  supposedly could not get his mouse to work until he discovered that he
  had a previously undiscovered hardware conflict with his scanner
  interface card (it worked fine with 3.0).

* If you told the install program that you wanted to install Windows 3.1
  over an existing copy of 3.0, and Windows 3.1 does not work, check for
  old device drivers in your WINDOWS directory and subdirectories.
  Apparently, some 3.0 drivers do not work with 3.1, or are unneeded.  It
  appears that, if you have a 3.0 installation with funny drivers (e.g.,
  SVGA display drivers, etc.), it's best to install a new, virginal copy
  of Windows 3.1 and rebuild/reinstall your program groups, etc..  After
  installing a virginal copy of 3.1, I was able to rebuild my program
  groups by copying the Windows 3.0 program groups into the Windows 3.1
  directory and editing "progman.ini" (I did have to reset the application
  icons -- for some reason, the icons were all set to the same, boring
  icon).  However, I would only try this with nonstandard program groups --
  I would leave standard program groups like "Applications" alone, as the
  3.1 version has a number of new entries.

     -- Darryl Okahata
	Internet: darrylo@sr.hp.com

DISCLAIMER: this message is the author's personal opinion and does not
constitute the support, opinion or policy of Hewlett-Packard or of the
little green men that have been following him all day.
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms