Norton Desktop System Summary Gives Incorrect Information

• Microsoft Windows NT operating system version 3.1
• Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server version 3.1

SYMPTOMS

The System Summary in Norton Desktop for MS-DOS displays incorrect information about these system resources:

• DISK DRIVE SIZE: incorrect as displayed
• MEMORY SIZE: meaningless as displayed
• CPU SPEED: low as displayed

CAUSE

Norton Desktop for MS-DOS was not designed to work with multitasking operating systems such as Windows NT. Desktop seeks and retrieves system information in ways unsuited to multitasking systems. To gather hard disk drive information, for example, Desktop tries a direct access to the hard disk drive using the BIOS. Windows NT does not support direct hard disk drive access and fails the call. Desktop, instead of what it is looking for, finds error code information that it reports without ascertaining that it is error code.

Desktop uses information from the .PIF file about extended (XMS) memory and this also is not what it is looking for: the Windows NT virtual MS-DOS machine (VDM) reserves 4 MB for your MS-DOS-based application, and returns this number for any call about memory resources.

Finally, Desktop's "loop" for checking CPU frequency returns incorrect information in most multitasking systems.

WORKAROUND

Use Windows NT setup to find out the correct system resource values, or run Desktop with Windows.