Suggestion for OS/2 and eComstation Drivers Arguments

This document it is a suggestion to help standardize some driver behaviours on OS/2 and eComStation drivers.

1. Boot Messages
It is common on eComStation and OS/2 that drivers that load on the boot procedure show a message during the boot. Here it is a recommendation on how to display messages for this drivers.

Default Message
The highly recommended behaviour is to make the default message a quiet mode without any message displayed. Only errors can be displayed in case the driver does not load.

A suggestion for the default message is only to show a message if an error happens: DRIVER.SYS: could not be loaded.

Verbose Mode “/V” or “/v”
It is recommended to include on the driver a verbose mode to show full detail of the version, copyright notice and important information about the driver that is being loaded.

Example: “DRIVER.SYS /V” should generate a message like: DRIVER:. DRIVER: Copyright by . DRIVER: Version 1.4.33 Date 2011/Jan/24 DRIVER: Recognized Device: XYZ DRIVER: Driver Loaded without warnings

Example 2: UNIAUD32.SYS /V UNIAUD32: Universal Audio Driver for OS/2 and eComStation UNIAUD32: Version 1.9.26-SVN551. Based on ALSA 1.0.21 UNIAUD32: Copyright 2005-2010 Netlabs http://www.netlabs.org UNIAUD32: Copyright 2000-2010 The ALSA Project UNIAUD32: Intel 82801AA-ICH with STAC9700,83,84 at irq 5 UNIAUD32: Detected Mixer: SigmaTel STAC9700,83,94

Quiet Mode “/Q” or “/q”
It is important to add a quiet or non-verbose mode. There are users that once they have their system stable do not want or need to see a boot message. When you add the /Q option no message had to be show during the boot procedure. Please also take care that the /Q is not sending also any blank space or return command as a message to be show.
 * No message most be presented
 * No error message will be showed
 * The driver will not pause the boot procedure.

Wait Mode “/W” or “/w”
If this parameter is specified, the driver waits after loading for user to press any key with message "Press any key to continue..." to continue the boot procedure.

Example: “DRIVER.SYS /W” should generate a message like: DRIVER:. Press any key to continue.

Example 2: “UNIAUD32.SYS /W“ UNIAUD32: Universal Audio Driver. Press any key to continue.

Audible Alert “/AA” or “/aa”
Some developers may want a beep or an audible alert to be hear on the boot procedure when the driver is loaded. By default the driver should not make a beep sounds on the boot procedure. The user must have the option to enable or disable audible alerts.

Example: “DRIVER.SYS /AA” allows the driver to play beeps on the boot procedure.