Network Workstations and Terminate Stay-Resident Programs

We have recently had a number of sites reported to us whereby a workstation has been specified for a particular network configuration and the amount of memory available to the workstation is very critical. The memory requirements for this workstation had been calculated according to the type of network to be used, and the applications to be run on the workstation. The workstation had then been installed and found to have less memory available to it than was previously calculated, therefore preventing the workstation from running as expected.

In such a situation, the application software to be used should be checked when specified to ensure that the functionality of the software is known. Some applications load portions of code as Terminate & Stay-Resident programs (programs that remain in memory after running), and the memory utilisation of these TSRs is not known in advance. Examples of these are NDL's TangoGate, and Borland's SideKick.

The workstation should also be checked to see if other TSR programs have been loaded that were not specified as part of the original configuration, as these will also have an obvious impact on system memory availability.

If a situation arises on a site whereby a workstation appears to be running low on memory, but where the base configuration (with all application software accounted for) should have had enough available memory to cope, check to see if any extra TSR software has been loaded, and if so, remove it and test the workstation again.

To check the workstation memory for TSR programs, you can use a number of methods:

1. If you are running a DOS 4 based workstation, you can use the DOS 4 command:
   mem /debug | more
   
   
2. Use one of a number of public-domain utilities that display what is loaded in memory and where. Some examples, all downloadable from File Area 8 of the Apricot Technical Support BBS, are:-

   Program Name	File Name on BBS
   MEMORY.EXE	MEMORY36.ZIP
   DOSMAP.EXE	DOSMAP.ZIP
   MAP.COM	CWMEMMAP.ZIP

If you are on a DOS 4 based workstation, the first option is more informative.

The use of 'extra' TSR software should also be considered and eliminated when attempting to trace a problem on a network workstation. If a TSR is resident on a workstation that is exhibiting problems when connected to a network, does the same workstation show the same problems without the TSR programs loaded? If the answer is NO, then the functionality of the TSR programs should be investigated further.

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