SwapMon v2.0 (c)Keith Jones
---------------------------

The Only Swapfile Utility You Need

A word about swapfiles
----------------------
Have you ever noticed your system becoming sluggish and unresponsive,
for no apparent reason? One possible cause is that your initial swap
file size is too small and OS/2 has stepped in to manage it. This will
be a common problem during your early days - the installed default
swapfile size isn't that big. But how do you know how big it should be?
SwapMon is the answer to this question! This small utility will tell
you at a glance if the problem is swap file size and (if it is) how big
it should be.

As you use OS/2 and have SwapMon active you will see that certain
applications will cause the swapfile to grow (Netscape always does it
to me) but if you only use these applications infrequently then there's
no need to increase the swapfile size. SwapMon allows you to watch
what's happening and with this information you will be able to judge
the correct size.

SwapMon will also monitor your swapfile usage and keep this information
across sessions. Using this usage figure will allow it to determine the
best size for your swapfile. Do you really *need* a 100MB swapfile?
After all you might only be using 20MB of it.

Installation
------------
Create a subdirectory for SwapMon to live in and unzip the
SwapMOn.zip archive into it. Run install.cmd in this subdirectory and
SwapMon will be installed onto your desktop.

Swapmon uses parts of the Theseus/2 package. You should have downloaded
this from SwapMon's home page (http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~kjones/)
at the same time as you got SwapMon.zip. There is no need to unzip this
archive, the install script will extract the bits you need. It will
also backup your CONFIG.SYS (to CONFIG.SWB) and add a line to it.
Because of this you will need to restart OS/2 for the changes to take
place.

Usage
-----
In use SwapMon displays three figures. The first is the initial size of
your swap file, as given in the SWAPPATH setting in your config.sys.
The second is the current size of your swap file. Depending on your
settings then if the current size is larger all information displayed
will be in red, otherwise it'll be in black. The final figure is the
size of your swapfile which is actually in use.

If your swapfile is currently larger than it's initial setting then
you need to consider increasing the initial size of your swap file.
This can be done by editing your config.sys (or you can let SwapMon do
this - see the section headed 'Menus'). Find the line which says:

SWAPPATH=E:\OS2\SYSTEM 2048 2048

(your numbers and location may not be the same). You need to change the
last number. So, suppose that SwapMon was saying that the current swap
file was 7168 you would need to change the last figure. Using the line
shown above it would become:

SWAPPATH=E:\OS2\SYSTEM 2048 7168

Save your new config.sys, shutdown and reboot. Your system performance
should now improve!

You should also see the Menu item "Show statistics" in the next
section. In fact, here it is....

Menus
-----
SwapMon has the following menu options:

File
----
Setup - this will bring up a dialog which will allow you to set the
alarm method to visual (turns the information displayed to red if your
current swapfile exceeds its initial value) and audable (irritating one
second beep if the current swapfile exceeds its initial value). You can
also set the interval between checks of current swapfile size (a value
between 1 second and 5 minutes is possible). The default button will
set the alarm to visual and the interval to 5 seconds.

Show Statistics - this will show the accumulated data which SwapMon
keeps. Based upon your maximum swapfile usage SwapMon will make an
educated guess on what your swapfile size should be and will
display this suggestion. If you click on OK then it will make a backup
copy of CONFIG.SYS (called config.swm) and write a new CONFIG.SYS with
the initial value set to the suggested swapfile size. Please note that
the increase will not take effect until you've shutdown and rebooted.

Exit - ummmm. Exits?

Help
----
About - displays a small dialog which tells you the current version and
how to contact me.

History
-------

v0.1 so bare as to be useless. Never released although a certain
magazine was offered a copy. Nothing happened.

v1.0 first general release.

v1.1 bug fix.

v2.0 SwapMon gets usefull.

Finally
------

SwapMon is freeware, but the copyright's mine. I accept no
responsibility for any damage which you or SwapMon may do by editing
your config.sys (you do keep backups, don't you?).

SwapMon uses Theseus/2 for its data. This is (c)IBM. The zip file is
called t2zip_k.zip and is available at SwapMon's home page
(http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~kjones/) or hobbes
(ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/drivers/).

The icon used by SwapMon is taken from David Edwards collection.
This is in a zip file called iconde.zip and is a great help for anyone
who's totally useless with this sort of thing! Thanks David.

If you wish to contact me with comments or suggestion then email me at
kjones@dircon.co.uk

If you need to inform me of a problem then please include as much
information as you can. "It doesn't work" won't help and all that'll
happen is we'll get into a twenty questions session. v1.1 came about
because of a bug which caused to calculations to go wrong. Here's an
extract from the mail message I received from Steve Campisano:

<snip>
SC>There seems to be a problem though and I'm sure it's more than
SC>likely on my end.

SC>The SwapMon values (in RED) are: Initial 92160k, Current 4194301k.

SC>My CONFIG.SYS entry is: SWAPPATH=E:\ 2048 92160.

SC>The hard drive that the above swap file is located on is a 402 meg
SC>separate physical unit from the 2 gig drive I boot Warp off of. 
SC>This 402 meg drive is broken down into a number of logical drives
SC>and is mapped in the following manner (info from Partition Magic):
<snip>

I hold this up as an example of how to report a bug. He's gave me all
the information I needed to track down the problem and fix it. If you
need to report a bug (and I don't just mean for this prpgram) then
that's the way to do it. Thanks Steve


Keith Jones 12/2/97
