CHANGES TO THE BORLAND OBJECT WINDOWS LIBRARY

Borland redistributable dynamic link libraries are supplied on Program Disk 2. These are supplied as part of the original shipment and have not changed since the original release of the program.

Under Windows NT, the original dynamic link library, OWL31.DLL, has some undesirable side effects. Your screen saver may pause or freeze. Other applications may run slowly. Performance Monitor will show CPU usage at 100%, even if the program is running in the background, idle.

Both the Pathloss and Map Grid programs will produce these symptoms.

To solve this problem, a new OWL31.DLL is included in the self extracting file PLW_MU.EXE. The date on this file is January 1997. Note that the maintenance update feature in the Setup program will not copy this file to the Pathloss directory. You must do this yourself.

SETUP PROGRAM OPERATION

When the setup program starts it first checks the operating system. Different installation programs are used for Windows 3.1, Windows 95 and Windows NT. Note that all of these require the file INSTxxxx.EXE.

Initializing Setup

Setup then creates a temporary directory on the first local hard drive with sufficient free space to hold the installation files. Setup will not create a temporary directory on a network drive. The temporary directory is named PLW30TMP0. If this directory already exists, the directory name will increment to PLW31TMP1, PLW32TMP2.. until a unique name is found. If the directory name reaches PLW39TMP9, Setup will fail on the following attempt.

The required files are copied to the temporary directory.

Activating the installation program

When the files have been copied, Setup activates the installation program. The installation program first verifies that the correct Setup disk is being used.

On Windows NT, there are several conditions which may cause the verification to fail.

You must have administrator privileges for the floppy disk drive containing the Setup disk. This is equivalent to saying that you are authorized to format a disk in this drive.

No other applications can be running when the Setup program is started. In particular, if there is a command prompt active the drive is set to the same as the Setup disk, the verification will fail.

The first attempt at verifying the Setup disk may fail without actually verifying the Setup disk due to timing issues. The "Key Disk Required" dialog box will appear immediately after the installation program starts. Just verify that the drive number is correct and click the OK button.

On Windows NT, the Reset Hard Disk Lock menu selection is not available. A different security scheme is used and this feature is redundant. Disk optimization /defragmentation programs do not affect the operation.

Cleaning Up

When the installation program terminates, the Setup program reactivates and will attempt to erase the installation files and temporary directory. This will fail on both Windows NT and Windows 95 if Windows has written any files into the temporary directory during the installation process. These are hidden files with the suffix "GID".

Check for the directory PLW3?TMP? on Drive C. If it exists you should erase it is just taking up space.

If you do not see the message "Cleaning Up" when the installation program terminates, the communication between Setup and the installation program has failed and you must manually erase the installation files and the temporary directory.

UPGRADING FROM WINDOWS 95 TO WINDOWS NT

If the Pathloss program has been installed on Windows 95 and the system is upgraded to Windows NT, no changes are required.

INSTALLING PATHLOSS ON A DUAL BOOT SYSTEM

If your computer is equipped with two operating systems (for example Windows 95 and Windows NT). The pathloss program must be installed using Windows 95 to operate on both operating systems.

If you first install the program on Windows NT, then it will be necessary to reset the hard disk lock under Windows 95.

SINGLE USER LICENSE INSTALLED ON A NETWORK DRIVE

In general a single user licensed Pathloss program will not operate on a network. This depends on the specific network, however the automatic network, backup procedures, will result in a hard disk lock failure.