The PnP Configurator is a small collection of utilities which will help people who want more control over their Plug and Play devices.

The first program, PNPSCAN.COM, runs under DOS. It scans the ISA Plug and Play devices on the system and makes a text file which describes all of their configuration options. This text file will not have any of the options selected, but will include descriptions of what each option means and instructions how to select the options you want to use.

The second program, PNPCOMP.COM, runs under DOS. It takes an edited copy of the text file generated by the first program (edit the file to select which configuration options you want to use), and generates a small configuration file. This configuration file is used by the third program to set up the devices.

The third program, PNPCFG.COM, runs under DOS, or PNPCFGDB.DBX can be used as a DocsBoot+ extension. This program is what does the configuration when you start your system (or want to change the configuration).

The PnP Configurator utilities can be installed anywhere on your system. There is no installer; simply extract the ZIP file into the directory where you want the program.

Initially, when you set up the PnP Configurator (and also when you add or remove PnP cards on your system, or need to change the configuration for some other reason), you run the PNPSCAN.COM program. This generates a text file which you must edit to reflect your desired configuration. Once this file is edited to your liking, run PNPCOMP.COM against it to generate the PNPSETUP.DAT file. If you are running PNPCFG.COM in a startup script (such as your AUTOEXEC.BAT file), leave the PNPSETUP.DAT file in the directory with the PNPCFG.COM program. If you are running PNPCFGDB.DBX from DocsBoot+, you must copy PNPSETUP.DAT and PNPCFGDB.DBX to the root of the first FAT partition on your first hard disc (often C:), or to the DOCSBOOT directory on the same volume (the former if you are not loading extensions from the directory, the latter if you are loading extensions from the directory).

PNPCFG.COM or PNPCFGDB.DBX is intended to be run only once per boot. The PnP features of your operating system should be set to leave the configured devices alone (most operating systems do this, but some refuse to allow a device to remain disabled unless explicitly told to). Once PNPCFG.COM or PNPCFGDB.DBX has run, your PnP devices are configured according to your preferences, and can be used as normal devices.

The PnP Configuration scanner utility PNPSCAN.COM requires a pure DOS configuration. DOS boxes under most other operating systems will probably cause problems or detection to fail.

The PnP Configuration compiler utility PNPCOMP.COM will run under a pure DOS configuration, or a DOS box on any operating system which has a fairly compatible DOS box.

The PnP Configurator PNPCFG.COM must run under DOS, but some other operating systems can invoke DOS programs during boot (OS/2 for example), and still others are based on DOS and still run the DOS AUTOEXEC.BAT startup script (Windows9x for example). It is often safe to run the PNPCFG.COM program under any of these contexts, but it is not safe to run PNPCFG.COM once anything other than pure DOS has finished the boot process.

The DocsBoot+ PnP Configurator extension PNPCFGDB.DBX only runs from within DocsBoot+. It is safe to run at this time, no matter what operating system you intend to use.

Operating systems which are not PnP aware will consider devices configured by these programs the same as classical devices with jumpers or fixed configurations. Don't use other DOS PnP tools with these utilities.

Operating systems which are PnP aware may need to have the PnP detect phase disabled (OS/2 Merlin (4.0) and later requires this), or devices which you want disabled may have to be explicitly set as disabled (the Windows9x systems require this). Linux is not inherently PnP aware, and includes PnP utilities similar to these. Either set can be used, or they could in theory be used together, but I'd recommed to use only one. Other operating systems might have different requirements.

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