Thank you for choosing to use Win4Lin from Win4lin Inc. (http://www.win4lin.com). Win4Lin integrates the Microsoft® Windows® 95/98 and Millennium Edition operating systems into the Linux® environment, allowing users to access both Linux and Windows® applications simultaneously.

This document provides release specific information that is supplemental to the Installation and Operations Guide, and the User's Guide and other on-line help documents contained in the distribution. 

Table of Contents

Introduction

What is Win4Lin?
New features in Win4Lin 5.0
Release History for Win4Lin 5.0

Installation Notes

System Requirements
Supported Windows Versions
Disk Space Requirements
Viewing the Documentation
Loading the Windows installation files from CD

Release Notes

Operational Tips
Known Limitations
Anomalies and Caveats

Supplement to the On-line Help Documentation

Support for Audio Playback
Customizable drive labels
Access to floppy disk drive during Windows installation
Networking Support
Windows 95 Y2K update
Selecting the locale for Asian language Windows

Obtaining Technical Support

Providing Feedback

Introduction

What is Win4Lin?

Win4Lin is an add-on to the Linux operating system that provides the capability to run DOS, Windows, and Linux applications simultaneously on your PC. With Win4Lin, you install the Microsoft Windows operating system from the standard CD-ROM installation media and then install and use off-the-shelf Windows applications in a multi-user, multitasking environment.

Linux is the master operating system that controls the physical hardware and file systems on your PC, while Win4Lin provides a complete virtual PC environment for the Windows operating systems. Windows applications execute in this environment as they would on a standard PC, with Linux providing the needed protection and resource arbitration underneath. Each user has their own private installation of Windows to work with, so on multi-user systems, the way one user uses or misuses Windows will not adversely affect any other users or the underlying Linux system.

New features in Win4Lin 5.0

Win4Lin 9x is a major update to the previous version, Win4Lin 4.0. It provides the following new features:

• WinSock 2 support
  Previous versions of Win4Lin only supported WinSock 1.1 (when the WinSock network option was selected.) Win4Lin 5.0 supports WinSock 2, allowing more network-enabled applications (such as Windows MediaPlayer) to function without the need for VNET.
  
  
• French, Italian, German, Spanish Windows Me support
  The list of supported Windows versions has been supplemented with French, Italian, German, and Spanish, full-install versions of Windows Me.
  
  
• Improved video performance
  Bitmap rendering performance has been increased significantly thanks to optimized algorithms for converting Windows graphics to Linux graphics. On local displays, the XShm (X Shared Memory) extension is automatically utilized to increase the speed at which images are transfered to the X Server, resulting in even higher overall performance. Win4Lin 5.0 is also the first release of Win4Lin to provide DirectX support. At the time of original release, only preliminary support for 2D applications (namely video players) exists, although many other applications may run as well. Any application which requires or checks for 2D/3D hardware acceleration will not function. Win4Lin has tested DirectX 8.0a, which is supported on Windows 95, 98, and Me, with Win4Lin 5.0.0. Please see the Release History for the latest information on DirectX support for each update of Win4Lin 5.0.
  
  
• Support for Novell® Client^TM software
  Connectivity to Novell® NetWare^TM servers is now possible using the latest client software available from www.novell.com. Win4Lin 5.0.0 currently supports ONLY client version 3.32 (including service pack 1 and 2). Older clients WILL NOT WORK, and will cause Windows to become unbootable if installed. Newer versions of the Novell client will be supported as released, in later Win4Lin 5.0 updates. At this time only IP (NOT IPX) is supported, and you must have selected the VNET network option. Before using the client on Win4Lin, please ensure that your NetWare administrator has enabled IP connectivity on the server. Win4Lin has tested against NDS versions of NetWare (4.x and higher) only. Please see the Release History for the latest information on supported Novell Client versions for each update of Win4Lin 5.0.
  
  
• Improved audio support
  Win4Lin 5.0 adds support for audio playback to the KDE aRts multimedia system. A new mechanism to automatically detect and use the appropriate audio subsystem has also been implemented. Win4Lin 5.0.0 supports the following audio subsystems: Linux kernel drivers (OpenSound, or ALSA with OSS API enabled), Enlightened Sound Daemon (EsounD, http://www.tux.org/~ricdude/EsounD.html) commonly used with GNOME, KDE aRts (part of the KDE suite), and NeTraverse Network Audio (nnaudio). Using the auto-detect feature, audio will automatically playback on LTSP thin clients, Sun Ray terminals (running the Solaris nnaudio package), and GNOME/KDE environments (without adjusting the audio server suspend parameters.)

Release History for Win4Lin 5.0

Changes in 5.0.1

New Functionality

• Added automatic keyboard mapping for foreign X servers (such as Solaris, VNC, Tarantella, etc.)
  NOTE:The MERGE_AUTO_KEYBOARD environment variable can be set to "off" to prevent this functionality and fallback to a generic keyboard translation if needed. This variable can also be set in /etc/default/merge.

Problems fixed

• Fixed the winsetup Device Definiton screen to open at the proper height.
• Fixed problem where win_network could fail with 'grep: mrgntmp/wrkgroup.reg: No such file or directory'

Initial release 5.0.0

This was the initial release of Win4Lin 5.0

Installation Notes

System Requirements

• Pentium^TM-class processor
  
  
• 32MB RAM or better
  
  System memory requirements are determined by the number of simultaneous DOS or Windows sessions in use. A single Win4Lin DOS session can run on a system with 32MB of memory, with a further 3MB required for each additional DOS session. A single Win4Lin Windows session, configured to provide Windows with 32MB of memory, can run on a system with 64MB of memory. But individual Win4Lin Windows sessions can be configured to use up to 128MB of system memory so it is important to ensure that the system has sufficient free memory to accommodate the expected demand of the Windows sessions.
  
  
• Linux 2.4.X kernel; 2.2.X is no longer supported
  
  
• RPM package management system
  
  
• An X Windowing System (1024x768 pixels resolution, 16-bit color depth (64K colors) recommended). If you experience refresh problems with Windows, you may need to enable (or disable) BackingStore.
  
  NOTE: The default configuration of XFree86-4.0.x does not have BackingStore enabled.
  
  Some X Servers require a customized keyboard mapping configuration file for full functionality, especially for non-U.S. keyboards. Refer to the file /opt/win4lin/xc/xcode.readme for information on the configuration of keyboard mapping files.
  
  
• Ability to run as root and install a new kernel
  
  

Supported Windows Versions

To use Win4Lin, you will require one of the following:

US English or European language version of Windows 95, 98, or 98 Second Edition installation media

US English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish language version of Windows Millennium Edition installation media. Windows Me "upgrade" CDROMs are not supported; only the full install versions are at this time.

Asian language version of Windows 98 Second Edition installation media

Win4Lin supports the following versions of Windows:

• Windows 95 "classic" (a.k.a. "retail")
• Windows 95 OSR2
• Windows 98
• Windows 98 Second Edition
• Windows Me (requires boot floppy)
• Windows 95 to Windows 98 Upgrade CD

  NOTE: The Windows 95 to Windows 98 Upgrade CD can be used for fresh installations of Windows. In order to install Windows form this CD, you must have a qualifying Windows 95 installation CD. Also, since the CD is not bootable, you will require a Windows 95 or Windows 98 boot floppy.

• Installation from a Windows "Companion" CD
  
• Installation from any Windows "rescue" CD
  
• Upgrading existing installations of Windows 95 to Windows 98
  
• Installation from a Windows 9x upgrade CD other than the one from Windows 95 to Windows 98
  
• Installation from a Windows Me upgrade CD
• Installation from any Windows CDROM which can only be installed with a specific computer's BIOS.

Win4Lin supports the following Windows language versions:

	Win95-Classic	Win95-OSR2	Win98-Original	Win98-SE	WinMe
Basque	Yes	-	-	-	-
Brazilian	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	-
Czech	-	Yes	Yes	Yes	-
Danish	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	-
Dutch	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	-
English	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Finnish	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	-
French	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
German	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Greek	-	Yes	Yes	Yes	-
Hungarian	-	Yes	-	Yes	-
Italian	-	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Japanese	-	-	-	Yes	-
Korean	-	-	-	Yes	-
Norwegian	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	-
Panama	-	Yes	-	-	-
Polish	-	Yes	-	Yes	-
Portuguese	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	-
Russian	-	Yes	-	Yes	-
Simplified Chinese	-	-	-	Yes	-
Slovak	-	Yes	Yes	Yes	-
Sloveni	-	-	Yes	Yes	-
Spanish	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Swedish	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	-
Traditional Chinese	-	-	-	Yes	-
Turkish	Yes	Yes	-	-	-

Disk Space Requirements

• Installing the RPM requires approximately 15 MB, mostly in /opt/win4lin.
  If you do not have enough space in your /opt filesystem then use symbolic links to map /opt/win4lin to another filesystem.
  
  

  ---

  NOTE: If you need to build your own Win4Lin capable Linux kernel, you will require an additional 70 MB to 90 MB for the Linux build tree, depending on your Linux version.

  ---

• Windows disk space requirements:
  
  

  Windows Version	To load CD in /var/win4lin	Per-user space in $HOME
  Windows 95 Classic	40 MB	41 MB
  Windows 95 OSR2	69 MB	93 MB
  Windows 98 First Edition	115 MB	148 MB
  Windows 98 Second Edition	132 MB	195 MB
  Windows Millennium Edition	198 MB	302 MB

  
  If you do not have enough space in your /var filesystem, use symbolic links to map /var/win4lin to another filesystem.

• Windows Temporary Space:
  
  
  • each session of Windows requires 50-100MB of temporary space on $HOME.
    
    
• Typical Windows Application filesystem requirements for $HOME using default install options:
  
  

  Office '97	116 MB
  Office 2000	60 MB (over 400 MB complete)
  Office XP Professional	286 MB (577 MB complete)

The above requirements for $HOME are based on default mapping of the C: drive location to $HOME/win. The winsetup configuration utility can be used to change this mapping. Alternatively, you can use symbolic links to map $HOME/win to another location.

Viewing the Documentation

This product provides an Installation and Operations Guide, on-line help documentation that includes a User's Guide, Trouble Shooting Guide, Manual Pages, and these Release Notes.

Electronic versions of the Installation and Operations Guide, are located on the CD in the doc/guide/pdf directory.

The on-line help documentation is located on the CD in the Win4Lin/help directory. After installing the package, these files are located under /opt/win4lin/help:

• /opt/win4lin/help/guide -- User's Guide
  
  
• /opt/win4lin/help/trouble -- Trouble Shooting Guide
  
  
• /opt/win4lin/help/man -- Manual pages for commands

All the on-line help documentation is in standard HTML format. The Linux man command cannot be used to display the manual pages.

The Help button in Win4Lin windows provide access to all the on-line help documentation.

To display the on-line help documentation from within a session, use <Shift-F12> to display the menu bar, then choose the desired topic from the Help menu

During installation, Win4Lin locates an HTML browser on the Linux system for use when displaying the documentation. If you do not like the choice of HTML browser, or the installation process was unable to find a suitable browser, you can specify the browser of your choice by editing the MERGE_HELP_BROWSER setting in /etc/default/merge.

NOTE: A user can override the default in /etc/default/merge by setting MERGE_HELP_BROWSER in their Linux shell environment.

If you have trouble installing Win4lin or Windows, or encounter other problems, please consult the Installation and Operations Guide, User's Guide and the Trouble Shooting Guide. Please note that you can always find the most up-to-date technical documentation, as well as the latest product updates, on our website at http://www.win4lin.com/support/.

Loading the Windows installation files from CD

The on-line help for this step explains how to create one of these floppy disks if you do not already have one, or how to use an "image copy" file of such a floppy if you do not have a floppy drive on your machine.  You must login as root and be running in graphical mode to perform this operation.

Release Notes

Operational Tips

• The commands winsetup, win and /bin/dos all require that the DISPLAY environment variable be set properly as is required by all X client applications.
  
  
• Windows may be used within an X window on your desktop, using the win command, or on a separate virtual console, using the fwin command.  The fwin command starts up a second X server on a another virtual console screen and has the advantage that accelerator keys (such as <ALT-TAB>) pass directly to Windows rather than getting caught by the Linux window manager.  This also makes it possible to configure the window manager to use different accelerator keys, thereby allowing the normal ones to pass through to Windows. Invoking fwin with the -help command line argument will print the available options.
  
• The default memory allocated to Windows 95 is 16MB.  This is adequate for running most Windows applications, including MS Office, and results in good overall system performance.  For Windows 98 first edition the default memory allocation is 20MB, for Second Edition it is 24MB, and for Windows ME it is 32MB. If your Linux system has sufficient memory, you can increase this memory allocation (to a maximum of 128MB) using the winsetup utility.
  
  

• Once your windows installation is complete, it is a good idea to make a backup copy of your ~/win directory (your C: drive). For example, issue the following command under Linux:

      cd
      tar cvf win-backup.tar ./win

  Also, it is strongly recommended that you use a separate drive mapping to hold all your personal files, rather than storing them on the C: drive. For example, use the D: drive that was automatically created when you installed Windows. If you do both of these things, it will make it very easy to reinstall Windows by simply restoring the archive of your  ~/win directory.
  
  
• It's important to remember that all the Linux filesystem permissions are enforced. You can take advantage of "read-only" and "deny access to others" permissions on files and directories to control access to parts of the C: drive.  Use of this facility makes it less likely that important windows files will be accidentally overwritten or corrupted. Use the Linux chmod command to change the permissions for "group" and "other".
  
  
• If you have cause to change the IP address of your Linux network interface, and you have chosen to configure your session to use the VNET networking feature, you need to notify the VNET environment of the change by issuing the following command as root:

      killall -HUP vnetd
  

Known Limitations

The focus of Win4Lin is to provide Linux users access to the thousands of Windows desktop productivity applications that are not currently available on Linux. The vast majority of Windows applications simply install and function normally in the Win4Lin environment. Certain classes of applications, however, may not be supported due to current limitations:

• Applications that require low level access to filesystem information may not operate correctly. In some situation, this limitation can be overcome by installing the application on a native Windows partition mapped as a drive. Examples of programs that may not work correctly are: virus scanners, disk defragmenters, disk scanners, and file repair programs. While many virus scanners are known to work on Win4Lin (such as Norton Antivirus), it is strongly recommended that you disable any boot sector or similar type scanning to avoid problems.
  
  
• Applications that require direct access to hardware are not supported. This includes some "dongle" protected software packages.
  
  
• Applications that install VxDs (virtual device drivers) may not operate properly.

In addition, the following features are not available in this version of Win4Lin: 

• Certain Multimedia intensive applications (e.g. video capture, video editing) - While it is possible that certain video editing applications may run well, the performance, especially on older hardware, may not be acceptable. Video capture applications will not function under Win4Lin.
  
  
• Playing audio CDs
  
  
• IPX - the current VNET implementation provides IP support only; If you are using a Novell client to access a NetWare server, make sure that the administrator has enabled IP on the server.
  
  
• USB device access - USB devices accessed directly from Windows are not supported. However, certain USB devices, assuming that they are configured correctly on Linux, can be used. These include keyboards, mice, printers, and mass storage devices. For keyboard and mice, these devices must be configured correctly in XFree86. For printers, a Linux print spooler (such as LPRng or CUPS) must be configured to access the printer, and then provide a queue accessible from the command-line lpr program, as used by Win4Lin. For mass storage devices, they must be mounted on Linux and then mapped as a drive into Win4Lin using the winsetup program.
  
  
• Direct device access - currently limited to serial and parallel port. Additionally, SCSI/IDE devices cannot be accessed directly - they can only be accessed if the medium is mounted on Linux, and mapped as a drive for Windows using winsetup.
  
  
• Hardware acceleration for Direct X - as used by most games. While some DirectX software should work under Win4Lin, many games require hardware-level 2D/3D acceleration. This is not supported at this time. Also, Win4Lin has tested DirectX 8.0a, available for Windows 95, 98 and Me, although newer versions may work. Examples of applications known to work with DirectX 8.0a on Win4Lin include video players such as Windows MediaPlayer, RealPlayer/RealONE player, and QuickTime.
  
  
• Sound recording - only audio playback is currently supported
  
  
• DVD/CD-ROM recording - writing to CD-R, CD-RW, and DVD devices is not supported under Win4Lin.
  
  
• VNET over Token Ring - VNET is designed to work only with Ethernet network cards.
  
  
• Windows NT/2000/XP
  

Anomalies and Caveats

• Norton Protection/Norton Protected Recycle Bin: These features, primarily found in the Professional editions of recent Symantec/Norton Antivirus/Norton Utilities software, are not supported. The most common symptom when they are enabled is a pop-up window with an "Illegal Operation" error. If you see this dialog during or shortly after booting Windows, please disable these features. Please consult your Symantec/Norton software documentation for information on how to do this.
  
  
• UTF-8 locales: If you are a RedHat 8.X (or later) user, or a user of another Linux distribution that includes UTF-8 locales, please take note: If you do a fresh install of the distribution (as opposed to an upgrade), most default locales have changed to UTF-8 encoding (for example, the new US English default locale is en_US.UTF-8). Though Win4Lin will work just fine with this locale set, you may notice an anomaly if you attempt to display a Win4Lin session or a winsetup session on a remote X display. If the remote Xserver does not have all of the requisite UTF-8 related fonts installed, then you are likely to get a warning message:
      Warning: Missing charsets in String to FontSet conversion
  

  In most cases, other default fonts will be substituted, and the warning message will be the only ill effect. If no other suitable default font can be found, winsetup may not work properly, or, for Win4Lin sessions, you may not see characters on the Dos/Windows menu. You can correct this problem by installing UTF-8 related fonts on the remote Xserver. To get more information about the missing fonts, run the dos, win, or winsetup command with MERGE_FONTDEBUG=TRUE set in the environment.

• X Cut & Paste: Some X applications do not support ICCCM cutting and pasting. In this case, a user can use xcutsel as a way of moving selections from active selections into a cut buffer and vice versa. KDE desktop users may need to clear the clipboard history before the xcutsel utility picks up the selection. Additionally, a utility called autocutsel is known to automate the use of xcutsel. At the time of this writing, autocutsel is available from: http://www.lepton.fr/tools/autocutsel/. It is a good idea to first check if this software is available in package form for your Linux distribution.
  
  
• CD-ROM Access: Some systems may not allow access to the CD-ROM device by default.  If you cannot access the CD-ROM device, check the permissions.  Typically, /dev/cdrom is a symbolic link to a real device, for example /dev/hdc is the CD-ROM when you have an IDE CD-ROM as the secondary master device.  Be sure this device has the appropriate permissions (i.e. readable by everyone). Also on some systems, the CD-ROM sometimes cannot be ejected until you exit your Windows session.
  
  On some systems, the use of the CD "automounter" might result in problems accessing the CD.
  

  If you are using the Gnome Desktop and have peripheral settings for the CD-ROM turned on, you should turn those off at this time. To change these settings:

  1. Click on the foot icon in the Gnome Panel.
  2. Select Programs->Settings->Peripherals->CD Properties.
  3. Deselect all options for Data and Audio CDs.
  4. Select OK. Then close the Control Center window.
     
     

  If you are running the KDE desktop you will need to open a terminal window and type:

      killall autorun

  This will stop the auto-mounter for the current KDE session only. Once KDE is restarted, the CD-ROM auto-mounter will function as it normally does.
  
  With some versions of KDE, you can edit the script /usr/bin/startkde to permanently prevent KDE from automatically mounting CDs. To disable automounting, remove or comment out the following lines and then restart the desktop:

      # start autorun daemon if available and not already running
      if [ -x /usr/bin/autorun ]; then
          /sbin/pidof 2>/dev/null >/dev/null autorun || \
             /usr/bin/autorun --interval=1000 \
             --cdplayer=/usr/bin/kscd &
      fi
  

  NOTE: Make a copy of the original file before modifying the contents so that you can restore your original configuration when required.
  
  If you can't resolve the problems accessing the CD, try using winsetup to define a drive letter for your session to obtain access to the Linux directory where the CD is mounted.
  
  
• Printing:  When you install a printer and select the option to print a test page, the Win4Lin session may hang for a short period of time, and then the print request may fail.  Just ignore the failure and click OK when asked if the test page printed correctly.  Try printing again from an application and you should find that printing proceeds normally. This type of problem is not unique to Win4Lin. It has also been observed on native Windows systems when printing to some types of network printers. It is, therefore, strongly recommended that you do not select the option to print the test page.
  
  
• $HOME/win directory on NFS mounted filesystem: Having a $HOME/win directory mounted via an NFS filesystem is not recommended. Problems associated with file locking may cause Windows to fail to start or to execute incorrectly. Additionally, NFS performance in general is very poor when compared to that of locally mounted volumes. If you decide that you must use an NFS mounted $HOME/win directory, please read the file: /opt/win4lin/badfs-readme.txt.
  
  
• NFS access to SGI system:  There are problems using NFS mounted filesystem from SGI systems. The problem is that some subdirectories are not seen. NFS mounted filesystem from other types of NFS server do not exhibit this problem.
  
  
• Floppy Disk Drive Access: There are several problems related to floppy disk drive access:
  
  
  • Inaccessible floppy disk drives
    Some systems may not allow access to the floppy disk drives by default. If you cannot access the floppy disk then check the permissions of the devices /dev/fd0 (for the A: drive) and /dev/fd1 (for the B: drive). If these are not the floppy disk drive device names for your system, you can specify other devices names with a setting in the file /etc/default/merge. For example if the A: drive is /dev/floppyA and the B: drive is /dev/floppyB, then put these two lines into /etc/default/merge:
    
        MERGE_ADRIVE_AUTOSENSING=/dev/floppyA
        MERGE_BDRIVE_AUTOSENSING=/dev/floppyB
    
    
  • No floppy disk drives.
    Some Windows operations requires that there be an A: drive, and can hang or cause long delays if it tries to access a nonexistent drive (this problem most likely to occur with laptop machines). If this becomes a problem then you can redirect A: drive access to an empty, read-only virtual floppy disk device by putting the following line in the file /etc/default/merge:
    
        MERGE_ADRIVE_AUTOSENSING=/opt/win4lin/diskimages/f.dsk
    
    
  • No second floppy disk drive
    If you have the device file /dev/fd1 but no real matching physical drive, it can cause delays when Windows tries to access the B: drive.  If you experience this problem, simply remove this device file.
    
    
• DOS Emulation:  If you have installed the DOS emulation support that comes with Linux, you may run into a conflict with /usr/bin/dos being in your path before /bin/DOS which is the Win4Lin DOS command.  If you're not going to run DOS don't worry about this.  Otherwise, check your path or alias as you deem appropriate.
  
  
• Ctrl-Z: You should not use <Ctrl-Z> to "stop" the win process, as it may give you unpredictable behavior. However, if you forget to run windows in the background, you can use <Ctrl-Z> to temporarily stop the session for the purposes of "backgrounding" it. For example:

  $ win
  <Ctrl-Z>
  [1]+ Stopped win
  $ bg
  [1]+ win &

• Mysterious Windows Hangs: Occasionally, you may experience hang-ups due to problems in Windows or your Windows applications. When a hang-up occurs, Win4Lin offers an advantage over native Windows in enabling you to restart your Windows session in just a few seconds. If the problem persists, please try to verify that the failure does not occur on a native Windows installation before reporting the problem to Win4Lin.
• Recycle Bin: With Windows 98, emptying the Recycle Bin can result in error messages in certain situations. The error message:

   Cannot delete file:  File system error (1026).  

  happens when Windows is trying to create a RECYCLED directory on a drive where it does not have permission to do so. To fix this, log in as root and then create a directory called RECYCLED in the directory where the drive letter is rooted.

  Another error message occurs as a result of moving a read-only file that is not owned by you into the Recyle Bin. This error happens later when you "empty" the Recycle Bin:

   Cannot Delete DCxx: Access is denied 

  (where 'xx' is a number). Windows fails to delete this file the from the Recycle Bin, but Windows shows an empty Recycle Bin. To actually remove the Dcxx files, you must use the Linux rm command to remove the files.
  
  Also, it is important to make all the RECYCLED directories readable and writeable only by the users with permissions to write to the directory containing the RECYCLED directory. You should set the RECYCLED directory owner and group to be the same as its parent directory, and remove the read and execute permissions where the users have no write permissions.
  
  For example, if the directory /foo has owner "bin" and group "sys", and the permission reported by ls -l are "drwxrwxr-x", execute the following commands as root:
  

      mkdir /foo/RECYCLED
      chown bin /foo/RECYCLED
      chgrp sys /foo/RECYCLED
      chmod ug+rwx /foo/RECYCLED
      chmod o-rwx /foo/RECYCLED

  
  
• Norton SystemWorks: When Windows starts with Norton SystemWorks installed, the following error message is displayed:
  

  Drive Read Error, drive X:

  This does not affect the operation of Windows, but an annoying error message will pop up every three seconds reporting:

  An error occurred updating the image data for drive C:
  This disk is either missing, full or damaged.

  as Norton SystemWorks tries to create an image of the C: drive. The error message is eliminated by canceling the task that is attempting to create the image.
  
  Norton SystemWorks contains several components that are meant to be used with a real Windows disk drive. These components attempt to read information from the disk Master Boot Record and the partition table. Since Win4Lin does not permit Windows to have access to the physical Master Boot Record and the partition table, these component will report errors until disabled by the user.
  
  
• Session Hangs when using fwin: The fwin command invokes a second X server and this has been found to cause problems on some system, particularly laptop machines. Since this is usually found to be caused by bugs in the X server software, it is recommended that you avoid using fwin if this problem occurs.
  
  
• Windows Installation Help: After clicking the Help button to obtain additional help information during installation of your Personal Windows Session, the help browser may appear only momentarily before exiting. This problem has been observed only with the Helix-Gnome version of the Gnome help browser in situations where the installer is invoked from a substitute user (su) session. It is recommended that you do not invoke the installer from an su session.
  
  
• VNET and DHCP: If Windows is configured to obtain an IP address from a DHCP server, and the DHCP server provides an IP address for a subnet that is different to that of the Linux host, it is necessary to make a configuration change to force VNET to override it's attempts to find a subnet match. To do this, select the network interface that you want VNET to use, such as eth0, and modify the contents of the file /etc/default/merge so that the line containing:
  

  	MERGE_VNET_IFNAME=auto

  is replaced by:
  

  	MERGE_VNET_IFNAME=<interface name>

  For example, if the network interface for VNET to use is eth0, modify the line to read as follows:
  

  	MERGE_VNET_IFNAME=eth0

  You must reboot the system for this change to take effect.
  
  
• VNET and MAC address assignment: VNET automatically generates and assigns a MAC address to the Merge NIC. This MAC address has the most significant two octets set to the hexidecimal value 1818, the next 3 octets set to the least significant 3 octets of the Linux host IP address, and the least significant octet is set to 00. This method of generating a MAC address is used to ensure that the MAC address will be unique in networks that use a DHCP server.
  
  In some situations, such as where the Linux host IP address is assigned by a DHCP server, the Merge NIC MAC address can be different each time the system is rebooted or the configuration of the Linux networking is changed. This can cause problems in circumstances where a fixed MAC address value is preferred, as in the case of applications which have their license tied to the MAC address of the network card.
  
  To alleviate this problem, you can modify the following parameters in the /etc/default/merge file:
  

  	MERGE_VNET_MACRANGE_START=auto
  	MERGE_VNET_MACRANGE_END=auto

  to define the start and end values of the range of values you wish to have assigned as MAC addresses. In each case, you need to replace auto with a 4 byte value (8 hexidecimal digits) to define the range of values that will be used in the least significant 4 octets of the MAC address (the first 2 octets are always set to 1818). If you set the start and end values to the same value, this will ensure that your Merge NIC is always assigned the same MAC address. So, for example, to set the MAC address to always appear as 18181234abcd, you need to modify these parameters to read as:
  

  	MERGE_VNET_MACRANGE_START=1234abcd
  	MERGE_VNET_MACRANGE_END=1234abcd

  You must reboot the system for this change to take effect.
  
  Please note, however, that care must be taken to ensure that no two installations are configured to use the same MAC address otherwise this can lead to conflicts in the assignment of IP addresses by DHCP servers.
  
  
• Virus Scanners: In general, most virus scanners work without problems but some do not function correctly, or can cause the Windows session to crash, when certain features are enabled. Specifically, the features that are likely to cause problems are those that scan memory or attempt to access the master boot record of the hard drive. It is recommended that you disable these features in your virus scanning software.
  
  
• Netscape 6 download: Problems may be encountered during the download operation initiated by the Netscape 6 Setup program. The download will stall at 0% and eventually timeout and report an error. This problem can be avoided by opting to perform the download operation using the "HTTP" protocol instead of the "FTP" protocol. When the Netscape 6 Setup program displays the Download Options window, click on the "Proxy Settings" button and then select the "Use HTTP for downloading files" option.
  
  
• Windows Update: We do not generally support running Windows Update under Win4Lin, and we don't recommend applying any of the Windows system updates to a Win4Lin Windows installation. Win4Lin patches a number of the system files in order for Windows to run as a Linux application, and Windows Update could easily overwrite these files or the Win4Lin patches, causing Windows to be unbootable. Also, since many of the Win4Lin components of Windows do not need the patches at all, Windows under Win4Lin does not in general need all of the patches Microsoft may think it does.
  
  

Supplement to the On-line Help Documentation

Support for Audio Playback

• Make sure your configuration file /etc/default/merge contains the line MERGE_AUDIO_PLUGIN=/opt/win4lin/libossplugin.so
  
  
• Start your Windows Session and open the Control Panel by clicking on Start->Settings->Control Panel.
  
  
• Launch the Hardware Wizard by clicking on the 'Add new Hardware' Icon.
  
  
• Follow the Wizard's instructions and when asked whether you want Windows to search for new hardware, choose 'No'.
  
  
• From the 'Hardware Types' list, choose 'Sound, video and game controllers'. When the Manufacturers and Models are displayed, click the 'Have Disk' button, and when prompted to 'Install from Disk' click the 'Browse' button.
  
  
• In the 'Open' window select the J: drive from the Drives selection list. Select mwin95 from the Folders list. The 'File name' text field will now show mss.inf.
  
  
• Click the 'OK' button on the 'Open' and the 'Install from Disk' windows. You will be prompted to select a device. The only device displayed will be 'Merge Sound Switch'.
  
  
• Click 'OK'. Finish the 'Hardware Wizard' and restart you windows session.
  

Finally, you need to tell Window multimedia applications to use the Merge Sound Switch. To do this:

• Open the Control Panel by selecting Start->Settings->Control Panel.
  
  
• Launch the Multimedia Properties window by clicking on the Multimedia icon. Select the Audio tab and, in the Playback box, select Merge Sound Switch from the Preferred Device drop down list.

To disable sound, set the environment variable MERGE_AUDIO_PLUGIN=none, or make this a permanent setting in /etc/default/merge.

To enable volume control on Windows:

• Open the Control Panel by selecting Start->Settings->Control Panel.
  
  
• Launch the Add/Remove Programs windows by clicking on the Add/Remove Programs icon. Select the Windows Setup tab, and double click on the Multimedia entry in the list.
  
  
• Check the box next to Volume Control at the bottom of the list. Click OK, then Apply, then OK again. If prompted to reboot at any time, say Yes. If the Volume Control item is already checked (indicating it's already installed), just cancel out of the Add/Remove Programs dialog box.
  
  
• Launch the Multimedia Properties window by clicking on the Multimedia icon. In the Audio tab, check the box next to Show volume control on the taskbar. After clicking Apply, the yellow speaker icon should appear in the your system tray. If this icon does not appear or the option mentioned above is grayed out, you may need to reinstall the audio driver. Follow the instructions for upgrading from Win4Lin 2.0 above to do this, then try this operation again. NOTE, if you installed Windows with a version of Win4Lin prior to 4.0.4, you may need to do this.

Known limitations are:

• No support for playing of audio CD's
  
  
• No support for sound recording.
  
  
• Audio and video can lose synchronization depending on the hardware, the drivers used and the workload of your Linux system.
  
  
• If the sound server cannot open the /dev/dsp device, Windows applications may become unresponsive, and your Windows session may terminate.
  
  
• The sound server provides sound output plugins for /dev/dsp devices (OSS API) at this time. ALSA (with the OSS API enabled), aRts, EsounD, and nnaudio are also supported. Please see the Installation and Operations Guide for more information.
  
  

Customizable drive labels

The default drive labels reflect the location of the drive mapping in the Linux filesystem.

NOTE: The "~" character refers to $HOME.

To customize the drive label do the following: create a directory named .labeldosdrive in the directory at the root of the drive and in that directory create an empty file with your chosen name for the drive label.

Known limitations:

• The drive label cannot be changed using native DOS and Windows tools.
  
  
• Windows 95 and some versions of Windows 98 restrict the label to 11 characters.
  
  

Access to floppy disk drive during Windows installation

Access to the floppy disk drive is prevented while Windows is being installed. This is done because on some Linux systems, when there is no floppy disk drive or no floppy disk in the drive, the Linux driver malfunctions and hangs until a floppy disk drive is installed and/or a floppy disk is put in the drive. Normally access to the floppy disk drive is not needed while installing Windows. If you need access to the floppy disk drive, type the following command:

installwindows floppyok

Networking Support

Win4Lin supports two methods of TCP/IP networking:

• WinSock
  This is the networking feature that was available in previous versions of Win4Lin. It is "WinSock 2 compliant". With this type of networking, TCP/IP based applications have their network data redirected through the Linux network interface. No configuration of Windows networking is necessary. You are required, however, to have a functional Linux network configuration before Windows applications can talk to the network. Winsock based applications such as ftp, telnet, Netscape, Internet Explorer, etc. will function normally. Applications which do not use WinSock for communications, such as MS Exchange, are not supported with this type of networking. If you installed Windows with an ealier version of Win4Lin, and would like to upgrade to WinSock 2, please see the Installation and Operations Guide for instructions on how to do this.
  
  
• VNET
  VNET stands for "Virtual Networking" and was available starting with Win4Lin 3.0. With this type of networking, the Windows session has a "virtual network interface card" which must be assigned its own IP address. If DHCP is used to allocate IP addresses on your local network, then you can have DHCP assign this IP address. With VNET, your Windows session has access to the "Network Neighborhood" for file browsing and printing. Access to MS Exchange servers and Novell NetWare servers using IP is also supported.

You choose which kind to use when you install Windows.

You can switch the type of networking from WinSock to VNET and from VNET to WinSock using the new command win_network. To change to WinSock type win_network -winsock2, and to change to VNET type win_network -vnet.

NOTE: Windows 95 users will need to download a WinSock 2 upgrade from Microsoft before switching to WinSock 2. If you run the win_network -winsock2 command and this upgrade was not downloaded, you will receive instructions on what the file is called and where it should be placed. Please see the Installation and Operations Guide for more information. If you would like to switch to the older WinSock 1.1 interface (available with Win4Lin 4.0 and earlier) for any version of Windows, you may switch to it by running win_network -winsock1. Please note that the older WinSock 1.1 interface is not compatible with many newer applications. It is strongly recommended that you use the WinSock 2 interface if you decide to use WinSock.

Windows 95 Y2K update

Microsoft's Y2K fix for Windows 95 (w95y2k.exe) is supported although some extra steps are required to complete the update. For instructions on these steps refer to the "Win95 Y2K Update" section in the Windows installation problems topic of the Win4Lin Troubleshooting Guide.

Selecting the locale for Asian language Windows

A successful installation of an Asian language version of Win98SE (the only version currently supported) requires that you set the
correct locale in your Linux shell environment. The shell's locale must match the Windows's language otherwise some Windows titles and menus will not display the correct characters. For example, you would set your shell locale to ja_JP for Japanese Win98SE.

To set the locale, you must first ensure that the locale you are going to set is installed or supported by your Linux system. On many Linux systems, the command:

rpm -qa | grep locales

will list the package names of the installed locales. The package names take the form locales-xx-n.n.n.n where xx is the country code ("ja" for Japanese, "ko" for Korean, "zh" for Chinese).

Once you are sure that the correct locale is installed, you should then check the current locale in your shell by typing the command:

locale

This will give output similar to the following:

    LANG=C
    LC_CTYPE="C"
    LC_NUMERIC="C"
    LC_TIME="C"

    LC_COLLATE="C"
    LC_MONETARY="C"
    LC_MESSAGES="C"
    LC_PAPER="C"
    LC_NAME="C"

    LC_ADDRESS="C"
    LC_TELEPHONE="C"
    LC_MEASUREMENT="C"
    LC_IDENTIFICATION="C"
    LC_ALL=

If the required locale has not been set, then set the locale using the shell environment variables LANG and LC_ALL. For example, to set your locale to Japanese, type the following commands:

LANG=ja_JP
LC_ALL=ja_JP
export LANG LC_ALL

The appropriate locale name can be found at /usr/share/locale where there will be several directories, each of which represents one locale name. Often, one locale will have several different but similar names. For example, the Japanese locale (EUC-JP code set) is usually represented by the following names: JA, ja_JP, ja_JP.EUC. Any one of these can be used.

Although most locales for any particular language use just one code set, there are some locales that utilize other less frequently used code sets. For example, most Japanese Linux distributions use EUC-JP, which is the only code set currently supported by Win4Lin. But the locale named ja_JP.ujis uses a different code set: UJIS. It is, therefore, necessary to check whether the locale in your Linux system is created in a code set supported by Win4Lin. The following is a table of code sets supported for each of the major Asian languages:

If the locale of your system has a name different to any of those listed in the above table, yet you are sure that locale uses the correct code set, you can simply add a line to the file /opt/win4lin/locale_codeset to enable Win4Lin to recognize your locale. The line you need to add must have the following format:

locale_name		codeset_name

For example:

ja_JP			EUC-JP

CAUTION: If the locale you are using is created in different code set from the one supported by Win4Lin, you may risk losing your data.

Obtaining Technical Support

There are two ways to obtain technical support from NeTraverse. The first method is to use the web-based support system, located at http://www.netraverse.com/support. The second method is to email support@netraverse.com. NeTraverse does not offer telephone support at this time, but we make every effort to respond to your questions via email very promptly.
For most support incidents, it is best to attach a support log file to either the email or the web interface. You can create the support log file as follows:

• log in as root


• cd ~<win4lin-user>
  (<win4lin-user> is the Linux name of the user who runs Win4Lin.)


• /opt/win4lin/bin/support.sh >/tmp/support.log 2>&1

For best results, it is recommended that you always write any support incident in English.

If you are receiving errors from Windows components or applications, please search the Microsoft support knowledgebase at http://support.microsoft.com BEFORE contacting NeTraverse support. NeTraverse only provides support for Windows applications when they exhibit problems related to Win4Lin. In many cases, application problems are not related to Win4Lin and support should be obtained either from Microsoft or from the 3rd party application vendor directly.

The Win4Lin users list is an excellent resource that allows the Win4Lin user community to share ideas. It is recommended that you subscribe to the list if you are not already a member. Also, NeTraverse staff members usually monitor the list and post feedback when appropriate. While you should always direct any support questions to the support resources listed above, the list is a great way to get additional help from experienced Win4Lin users. To subscribe to the list, please visit http://www.netraverse.com/support/maillists.php.

Providing Feedback

NeTraverse very much appreciates all feedback on the product. We are particularly interested in hearing about applications that you have tried and have found to work. Of course, we also welcome information regarding problems you have encountered with the installation or operation of applications. Further, we are interested in your ideas for new product features and enhancements. This input will help guide our future development.

Please use our web site http://www.netraverse.com to provide your much needed feedback.

Legal Notice

Win4Lin is a trademark of NeTraverse Inc. Windows and the Windows operating system are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other products, services, companies, events and publications are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of their respective owners in the U.S. and/or other countries.