I am using Windows for Workgroups 3.11, DOS 6.20 and QEMM8 on a 486DX2/66 with 24Mb RAM. When I open the SysEdit program, I am unable to enter any keystrokes into the win.ini window. I can delete characters, but no matter what I do, the window will not accept any keyboard input. No matter what I type, or where I try to type it, the insertion point just stays immobile.
None of the other Sysedit windows shows this behaviour. I can edit in the autoexec.bat, config.sys, system.ini windows in the normal way with no problems.
I have encountered this problem previously. However, it disappreared after I was forced to delete and reinstall WFWG due to a major Windows corruption problem (caused by a diagnostic program which has some big bug in it). Now the problem is back again. I have done some work to try to track down the cause (including looking in the MS Knowledge Base and examining all the INI files), but have found no explanation.
I can edit win.ini using a text editor, so the problem is not crippling me in any way. However, it would be nice to find a solution, and an explanation of the cause.
My current installation of WFWG is working fine, without any significant quantity of GPFs or other strange behaviour, and all other applications seem to be working properly.
Currently, I have my system set up to dual-boot with Win95. However, I feel this is irrelevant, as the first instance of SysEdit's strange behaviour happened before I installed Win95.
- Terry Day
Windows 3.x users will probably be aware that vital configuration information for many programs is stored in files with an INI extension. Some applications create their own initialisation files, while others simply add a section to win.ini. The latter technique gives rise to some unfortunate side effects. If you uninstall an application, for example, you may find that its associated entries in win.ini remain -- taking up space but serving no useful purpose. Also, the more applications you install, the more entries are added to win.ini and the file can grow to many times its original size.
Windows reads win.ini every time it starts, so if this file becomes bloated, you may notice that Windows takes longer to load. Worse, the largest valid size for an INI file is 64K. If win.ini blows out beyond this limit, Windows will simply ignore entries towards the end of the file. Bad news indeed.
SysEdit, the handy little text editor that opens all your key configuration files simultaneously for convenient editing, can't even handle a 64K file. SysEdit will swallow up to 29,999 bytes, then start misbehaving in amazingly creative ways. In this situation, an informative message box saying "Win.ini is too large -- please reduce its size and restart Windows before continuing" would be very helpful, but of course life isn't like that. Instead, SysEdit will attempt to throw you off the scent by telling you that it can't open the config.sys or autoexec.bat files. Or it might subject you to the kind of schizophrenic treatment that Terry experienced. Being able to delete characters from a file but not add any is disconcerting in the extreme!
So how can you reduce your win.ini to an acceptable size? Well, you can throw the baby out with the bath water by reinstalling Windows. This will re-create a moderately-sized win.ini, but will also force you to reinstall all your applications. And when that's done, you may find you have re-created the problem. Alternatively, you can take a hatchet to win.ini (back it up first, of course!). Open the file with the DOS Edit program and remove unnecessary sections. These will include all references to deleted or unused applications. If your win.ini file is still carrying too much fat, take a close look at the [fonts] section. Some applications add dozens of TrueType fonts to your system, many of which you probably don't need. Deleting these will often save you a few thousand bytes.
- Neville Clarkson
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Category: Windows 3.x
Issue: May 1997
Pages: 147-148
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Strange behaviour from SysEdit