Installing DOS Requesters

Pervasive.SQL 9 SP1 (9.1) supports DOS Btrieve applications in several different ways. This, however, depends on the current configuration and environment of the workstation.

Available Requesters

The following choices are available:

Win32 DOS Box support: Allows a DOS application to run in a DOS box on a Windows NT or Windows 98 workstation. This enables direct communication to the Windows 32-bit workstation components rather than to the database engine. This configuration can be used with either a local Pervasive.SQL 9 SP1 (9.1) Workgroup engine, or a remote Pervasive.SQL 9 SP1 (9.1) server engine. The TCP/IP or SPX protocol supported for client/server access depends on the configuration of the Windows 32-bit components.

DOS TCP/IP requester (BREQTCP): Allows a DOS application to run in any Windows DOS box or on a DOS workstation, and communicate to a remote Pervasive.SQL 9 SP1 (9.1) server engine via the TCP/IP protocol.

DOS SPX requester (BREQUEST or BREQNT): Allows a DOS application to run in any Windows DOS box or on a DOS workstation, and communicate to a remote Pervasive.SQL 9 SP1 (9.1) server engine via the SPX protocol.

There are different reasons for using these different options, including:

Pervasive.SQL 9 SP1 (9.1) Workgroup engine only supports the Win32 DOS Box configuration.

DOS operating system requires the DOS TCP/IP or SPX requesters when accessing a remote server engine.

A particular environment may have only one of the supported protocols available.

Windows 98/ME and 32-bit Platforms

The preferred requester for Windows 98/ME and 32-bit platforms is BTRBOX. You can use this Requester even for legacy DOS applications.

Note
Use the BREQUEST/BREQNT/BREQTCP Requesters ONLY if you experience a problem with BTRBOX.

Win16 and DOS Workstations

The Requesters for non-Win32 boxes are:

BREQUEST

BREQNT

BREQTCP

If you experience problems with these requesters, see Alternate DOS Requesters .

Installation of the DOS Requesters

To install Pervasive.SQL 9 SP1 (9.1) client software on a DOS client:

Note
Clients using the DOS operating system will have only transactional access to the data files. No relational access is available for this platform.

Installation of the DOS requesters is a matter of copying the files to the desired directory on your hard drive.

Find the \clients\dos directory on the Pervasive.SQL 9 SP1 (9.1) installation CD or in the pvsw folder on your server.

Copy the contents of that directory to the desired directory on your hard drive.

To configure your DOS requesters, go to Using the DOS Requesters .

Alternate DOS Requesters

Functionality was added to BREQUEST.EXE, BREQNT.EXE and BREQTCP.EXE starting in versions Pervasive.SQL 2000i (SP3) to allow them to access newer Novell NetWare Client APIs to obtain information about the user's rights to files being Opened or Created. This reduced the time required to Open or Create a file by approximately two seconds.

On some DOS machines, however, these improved executable files do not function correctly and the following issues may result:

Status 20 (the Microkernel or Btrieve Router is inactive)

Status 91 (application encountered a server error)

Status 94 (application encountered a permission error)

EMM386 error #12 and EMM386 general protection faults (GPF).

If you experience any of these issues using the standard DOS requesters, there are two possible solutions:

Upgrade the Novell NetWare Client to those Novell shipped with NetWare 5.0 or later.

Use the alternate DOS requesters.

Pervasive includes versions of the BREQ*.EXE executable files that do not include the newer NetWare API calls in the \CLIENTS\DOS\ALT directory on the Pervasive.SQL CD and on the \PVSW\CLIENTS\DOS\ALT directory on your Pervasive.SQL server.

Replace the BREQ*.EXE files on your DOS requester with the alternate files in \PVSW\CLIENTS\DOS\ALT.