
                               Release Notes
                               =============

                                    for

                            PC-Duo Version 2.10
                            ===================


              Copyright (c) 1995 PCI, Vector Networks Limited
                            All Rights Reserved.


Author        : D. Briggs.

Revision Date : 26th July 1995


NOTE:  This is a field test pre-release of the PC-Duo v2.10 package.  It is
provided in order to  test the new technology components.  Apart from these
release notes,  new features are not documented anywhere.  The on-line Help
is  not complete  and may  be inconsistent  with the  new  software.  These
deficiencies  will be  corrected in the  official  release.  Please contact 
Vector Networks if you need further assistance.


This document  contains the release notes  accompanying version 2.10 of the
PC-Duo PC-PC Remote Control package.

This software is supplied under a licence and may only be used or copied in
accordance with the terms of that licence.  This software or copies thereof
must not be made available to unauthorised personnel.

No  title  to  this  software  nor  ownership  of  this  software is hereby
transferred.

Evaluation  copies are  supplied for  the purpose  of evaluation  only  and
must  not  be  resold  or  passed  to  any  third party without the express
permission of Vector Networks Limited.

Please note that serial number files (CLIENT.SER) for versions earlier than
2.00 will not work  with this release.  Please contact your  supplier for a
new authorisation key if necessary.

Package Enhancements over the Previous Release
==============================================

Version 2.10 of PC-Duo includes preliminary support for Windows 95. This is 
also beta test until Windows 95 is generally available. Please refer to the 
Windows 95 section below for further information.

A new Windows display intercept mechanism has been introduced.  This should
eliminate problems with resolution, button sizes, and Windows captions. 

Operation over Windows Sockets TCP/IP network transports has been improved,
and several additional  stacks have been tested.  PC-Duo now works reliably 
over the following transports (new transports are shown by a '+') :

- Digital Equipment PATHWORKS 5.x TCP/IP;
+ Frontier Technologies SuperTCP Pro for Windows v1.1;
+ FTP Software OnNet v1.2 (a.k.a. PC/TCP v3.1);
- Microsoft 32-Bit TCP/IP (Wolverine) v3.11 and 3.11a;
+ NetManage Chameleon v4.01;
- Novell LAN Workplace for DOS;
+ SunSelect PC-NFS v5.1;
- Trumpet WinSock (for the Control only);
+ Walker Richer Quinn Reflection Network Series TCP Connection v5.00;
+ Wollongong PathWay RunTime Release 2.0.

TCP/IP Windows Sockets Notes:
- It is necessary  to use the buffered version of  SuperTCP's  FTCTCPIP.386
  TCP/IP virtual device driver (VxD) to prevent Client(s) from losing their
  connections.  To do this, change the device=C:\SUPERTCP\ftctcpip.bfr line 
  in SYSTEM.INI [386Enh] to device=C:\SUPERTCP\ftctcpip.bfr;
- If Clients disconnect unexpectedly when using PC-NFS, load the RTM module
  with a larger /HEAP, e.g. RTM /HEAP 32.
- Windows Sockets  transports are  loaded by Windows  searching the working 
  directory, WINDOWS and WINDOWS\SYSTEM directories, and then the DOS PATH,
  for a file called WINSOCK.DLL. If the wrong one is found and used, it may
  crash Windows.

Contact Vector Networks for further details on TCP/IP configuration.

The Windows Control now has "ToolTips".  These help bubbles appear when the
mouse cursor is left over a Toolbar button for about a second.

The Windows Control File Transfer  dialog box has been extensively revised.
New features  include another Toolbar  (with ToolTips),  more extensive and
re-sizeable file windows.  Both drag-and-drop  file transfers and directory 
tree operations are supported.

The Windows Control now implements Control mode.  This disables the Windows
Client's  mouse and  keyboard.  It is also  possible to  blank the Client's
display when it is accessed in Control mode.

The  Windows Control  now asks  for confirmation  before exiting.  This was
needed for Windows 95.

The Windows Client can be configured so that it sends TrueType fonts to the
Control. This is enabled using the /P option, and should help in situations 
where the Client is using fonts which are not installed on the Control (but 
it only works with TrueType).

The Windows Client can now operate without the LOCALIPX TSR in a standalone 
PC (i.e. one with no network). This feature is enabled (for the IPX Client)
with the /A option. The IPX Bridge DLL must also be used.

The PC-Duo Configurator has been improved. It can now edit existing Control
icons, as well  as creating new ones. It also supports several  new Windows
Client and Control program options.

The Bridge now supports an inactivity timeout (option /Tnn,  where nn is in 
minutes).  This allows the Bridge to hang up an idle phone connection. This
should be used with  the new Client and Control /O  option which suppresses 
"tickle packets".

The old  "Reinstall after Windows Setup"  icon in the  PC-Duo Group  is now
called "Reset Video Driver".  This program is used to ensure that the lines
in  SYSTEM.INI  [boot]  that are used to  load the PC-Duo intercept  driver
PCDVGA.DRV and the real display driver  are correct after a change has been
made using Windows Setup.

Windows 95 Support
==================

PC-Duo  can now be  installed and  used as a Windows Client  and Control on
Windows 95. It should interwork with Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups 
v3.11, over TCP/IP Windows Sockets or NetBIOS. 

There are, however, some restrictions:

- Asynchronous  operation over  NetBIOS (or NetBEUI)  is not possible. This 
  may reduce performance;
- There is a bug in  Windows 95's IPX  support (this was  introduced in the
  beta-3 release).  If a Windows Control or Client is used heavily over IPX
  (i.e. NWLINK), the system will hang. This has been reported to Microsoft;
- The 3-D button support library CTL3DV2.DLL must be copied into the SYSTEM 
  directory,  or PC-Duo Windows programs will fail to load with the message 
  'invalid path specified'. Unhelpfully, the missing DLL is not reported;
- Windows SHOW does not work. It blows up the Client!
- Print redirection does not work from a Windows 95 client;
- File transfer reports occasional spurious 'writing file at client' errors
  which appear to be due to a Windows 95 networking bug.

Problems Corrected in this Release
==================================

Windows hangs which resulted from the Windows Client attempting to read the
display adaptor's colour  pallette or video memory have been removed by not
doing it! This "fixes" problems with Matrox and several new S3 drivers. The
colour pallette read can be re-enabled, if necessary, using the /1 option.

The new  display driver  intercept technology also  fixes the long-standing 
problem with Number 9 display drivers  which are sensitive to the length of 
the name specified in SYSTEM.INI [boot] display.drv, and use this to decide
which mode to operate in.

TCP/IP Windows Show has been fixed.

The problem which caused a WCLIENT GPF when exiting Windows with an active
popup program (such as cc:Mail) has been fixed.

When  the Windows Client  has  finished  initialising,  it re-instates  the
previously-active Window. This should eliminate problems with network logon
or auto-connect dialog boxes.  The Initialising... box can be suppressed by
using the new /- option.

A problem that  could cause the DOS Client to crash when  the /E option was 
used has been fixed.

DOS Broadcast Show has been improved.

Known Problems in this Release
==============================

Control mode does not disable  the Client's  keyboard or mouse inside a DOS
box. This works in Windows only.

Operation  over the  Windows for Workgroups  IPX/SPX  Compatible  Transport
(NWLINK.386)  will be  unreliable  if this transport  is also used for file
sharing.  NWLINK.386 is not re-entrant  and gets confused if it tries to do
more than one  thing at a time!  This can cause Windows  to drop out to the
DOS prompt.

NWLINK.386 clears the top bit of the first byte of the destination Ethernet
address in IPX messages.  This results in loss of these messages. PCs which
are also  running a DECnet  transport are  susceptible to this problem,  as
their first byte is typically AA. Messages are actually sent to address 2A.
A corrected version of  NWLINK.386  is available from the Microsoft Library 
on CompuServe (!GO MSL and search for WG1027).

Similar problems may be encountered if the NetBIOS interface to Microsoft's
32-bit TCP/IP (Wolverine) is used. Use Windows Sockets instead.

The  Windows Control  can hang  if it is  used over the  NetBIOS  interface
provided by the  WRQ Reflection Network Series  TCP Connection.  This has a 
serious data overrun problem which breaks WCONTROL. The fault can be worked
around by setting all TCP/IP NetBIOS Clients to use only one network buffer
instead of the default of two. Use the /N1 option to achieve this.

Wildcard Connect on Control startup  with a  message file (i.e both /C* and
/Mfilename options) does not send the message to the Clients.

ALT-GR key combinations are not supported by the Control programs. However,
many of these combinations are accessible by using CTRL-ALT- instead.

You should not run a Windows Bridge DLL with a DOS Client TSR.

A DOS Bridge TSR may not be able to see a Windows Client if there is no DOS
Client TSR loaded.

Windows  may  hang  when  started  if  the DOS Client TSR is loaded and the
Microsoft Sound System driver  (vsndsys.386)  is configured. To check this,
look for device=vsndsys.386 in SYSTEM.INI [386Enh].

An  incompatibility has  been noted  with the Packard Bell Navigator.  This
multi-media application will hang  if there is an active PC-Duo  connection
when it is started.

Most  popular display  adapters are  supported.  However,  not all  Windows
display  accelerators are  supported in  this release.  Problems have  been
reported with  Olivetti EVD display adapters.  Colours may not be displayed 
correctly on the Control when the Client has a Cirrus Linear display.

If you have a problem with a Windows Accelerator,  and can't resolve  it by
reducing  the display  resolution  (e.g. to  Super VGA 800*600*16 colours),
please contact your supplier for further assistance.

Connecting to Clients running DOS boxes under  Windows may be unreliable on
some machines.  The chance of a problem occurring can  be reduced by making
the DOS box exclusive in the appropriate PIF file.

Some ICL PCs  exhibit a "Sticky Control" key. The Client thinks the Control
key is down,  when it isn't.  This  results in  incorrect characters  being
received  by the  application  running on  the Client.  It  can usually  be
cleared by  tapping the  Control key on the Control.  If this doesn't help,
try setting the Control to BIOS Keyboard (instead of Low Level Keyboard).

Windows Installation Notes
==========================

If you are installing on Windows for Workgroups, the default Client/Control
name is read from the SYSTEM.INI [network] computername= line.  The name is
used to define the PCDCMD environment variable in STARTTS1.BAT,  as well as
for the Windows Client and the Control program icons.

If you select Windows (only),  then DLL versions of the Client, Bridge, and
Remote will be installed.

If you select TCP/IP Windows Sockets support, you must also install Windows 
support.

It is not possible to configure Remote and Bridge installations at the same
time. Do them sequentially (remote first).

If you are installing a Bridge, you must also select the Client option.

If you are installing a Remote, you must also select the Control option.

If you select DOS, then TSR versions of the Client, Bridge, and Remote will
be installed.  These TSRs will be loaded by STARTTSR.BAT, STARTTS1.BAT, and
STARTTS2.BAT.

DOS Installation Notes
======================

INSTALL may not copy the README.TXT file into the output directory. This is
the result of an interaction with the DOS SHARE program.

Documentation Notes
===================

The Windows Help is not up to date.  The documentation of  new features and
options is not finished. Contact Vector Networks for further information.

Diagnostic Utilities
====================

The usual diagnostic utilities are not supplied with this kit, as they will
not fit on this disk. If you need them, use the PC-Duo v2.02 disk instead.

Automated Installation with LANutil
===================================

LANutil automated installation scripts for PC-Duo v2.10 are not included in 
this kit. Contact Vector Networks for further information.

LANutil for PATHWORKS is Vector Networks' PC network management package.
