Microsoft EDLIN for Windows - Users Manual and Reference Guide Chapter 1 - Welcome to WinEDLIN! Thank you for purchasing Microsoft's EDLIN for Windows, the first line editor for Windows. With this release, we hope to promote the new image of some of the older Microsoft tools. Unlike its predecessor, EDLIN for DOS, this version supports a full graphic interface with 256 colors, has complete OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) support for use with other Microsoft applications, and supports all TrueType (tm) fonts. We hope you find WinEDLIN a useful and helpful product, and look into our full line of redesigned Microsoft applications, such as WinBASICA, WinEXE2BIN, and WinMORE. Chapter 2 - Installing WinEDLIN Insert Disk 1 of your 24 installation disks into drive A. From Program Manager, go to the File menu and select Run. Type "A:INSTALL". A dialog box will appear, asking you for your name, company name, address, license number, date of birth, and mother's maiden name. This is for registration purposes and must be filled out accurately or WinEDLIN will not run. For your convenience, WinEDLIN will automatically place a call on your modem to the nearest Census Registration Site, to corroborate the registration information. It will do so every time the program is loaded, to ensure against software piracy and fraud. The nearest site to most USA locations is in Tomburrino, New Guinea, which accepts calls (at 300 baud) 24 hours a day, for your convenience. Once this information has been entered, WinEDLIN will begin copying itself onto your hard drive. The installation for each disk will take somewhere in between 45 seconds and 30 minutes; it is recommended that you not leave your computer during this time, as you will be prompted, at some point, to insert the next installation disk. For your convenience, the installation program does not display a dialog box, making you click on a button before it begins accessing the next disk. Instead, it will pause while you insert the next disk. Please have the next disk ready, as you will be expected to insert it within 150 milliseconds of being prompted. Once this time has elapsed, the installation program will resume its copying. Under the unlikely event that the same disk is read for a second time, a built-in safety feature will prevent the already-installed data from being overwritten; the data being read will instead be written to random sectors of the hard drive, overwriting other, less important, files. WARNING! Do not remove an installation disk once the program has accessed it! Doing so can cause unpredictable behavior, and is likely to format your hard drive. Chapter 3 - Getting Started With WinEDLIN For your convenience, the WinEDLIN installation program will unclutter your desktop by removing all other groups (and deleting their associated files from the disk). The desktop will now contain only one group, consisting of one icon. Double-click on the icon resembling a jar of molasses to load WinEDLIN. There may be a short wait while WinEDLIN searches your hard drive and greps through every file to determine if that file is part of the WinEDLIN package. For future purposes, every file that does not correspond to a Microsoft Application format is deleted; this will dramatically increase the performance of WinEDLIN in the future. There will then be a short pause as the overlays (stored as WINED001.OVL through WINED867.OVL) are loaded into memory. Our Beta Testing department averaged about a 24 second wait. Your results should be similar. Note: The Microsoft Beta Test department consists of a variety of systems, designed to simulate the computer of the "average user"; these computers range from simple AI mainframes to multi-Cray systems. The WinEDLIN project window will appear, from which you will choose the file that you wish to edit. For your convenience, there are no complicated text boxes or directory trees for you to navigate. Instead, WinEDLIN displays every available file as a separate icon. To economize on memory, the icons are all identical, and no file names are shown; merely click and hold on a icon for 20 seconds and a message box will pop up with full information (filename AND extension) about the file. A typical VGA display will support up to 256 such icons being shown; in the unlikely event that your disk contains more than 256 files on it, we recommend that you repartition your hard drive, limiting each partition as described above. Failure to do so may overload your VGA driver, causing Windows and WinEDLIN to act in an undefined manner, and is likely to format your hard drive. Selecting a new drive is even simpler. Merely exit Windows, switch to the new drive, and start the copy of Windows that is installed on that drive. If Windows is not installed on that drive, you will have to install it (obviously), but this needs to be done only once. This may cause occasional problems when working with floppy disks, and we recommend selecting "No Optional Components" installation when installing Windows to a floppy disk. You may wish to Doublespace the disk prior to installation, as you will need approximately 3MB free. Chapter 4 - Working With Files Find the file that you wish to edit, and double-click on its icon. Take care to click directly on its center, or WinEDLIN will assume that you wish to exit, and will shut down itself, then Windows, for your convenience. The file will be loaded into memory, and immediately deleted from the disk (to allow more room for the Windows virtual swap file). After a brief wait while the file loads (our Beta Testing department averaged about 12 seconds; your mileage may vary), you will be presented with the WinEDLIN file editing window. This window consists of one text box and a row of 47 icons. Only the seven primary icons will be covered here; the others are user-definable, and are utilized by creating a script file for each, named WINEDnnn.SCR (where nnn is the absolute position value of the icon, and can be easily computed using the simple formula found on pages 42-59 of the online help). Clicking on a user-definable icon that does not yet have a script file associated with it, or attempting to run an invalid script file, will cause undefined results, and is likely to format your hard drive. Chapter 4.1 - "EDIT" The EDIT command, represented as a butcher knife icon, is the most useful command in WinEDLIN. Clicking on the EDIT icon will shift the focus to the text box, where you may type in the new line. Unfortun- ately, the proliferation of icons on the screen prevents a second text box from being shown. Therefore, WinEDLIN cannot show you the original contents of the line, or the current line number. Fortunately, it is simple to get this information, by including a certain "escape character" anywhere in the line. WinEDLIN will search through the file for lines containing this character; all such lines will be deleted and replaced with the current file statistics (size, name, date of creation, marital status, etc.). The default "escape character" is a space. This may be changed with a little bit of time and a simple hex editor. Make sure that you are editing the correct byte, or the program may run unpredictably, and is likely to format your hard drive. Chapter 4.2 - "COPY" The COPY command, represented as a bloated cow icon, allows you to quickly duplicate lines. Clicking on the COPY icon will copy the first ten lines of the file, overwriting the second ten lines. Clicking on it again will copy those first twenty lines, overwriting the next twenty lines. Do not click on it again, as the actions for such a command are undefined, and are likely to format your hard drive. With some line manipulation via the EDIT command, this is one of the more powerful tools of WinEDLIN. Chapter 4.3 - "DELETE" The DELETE command, represented as a disgruntled postal employee icon, allows for the quick deletion of lines. Clicking on the DELETE icon will delete the last line edited, plus N lines before and after it. N is a user-configurable number, for maximum flexibility and ease of use, and can be set anywhere between 100 and 2500. Take care not to delete past the end of the file, as this will destroy key sectors of memory, and may interfere with WinEDLIN's ability to process files, access the clipboard, and format your hard drive. Chapter 4.4 - "END" The END command, represented as a Dr. Kevorkian icon, is the command to end this editing session. Clicking on the END icon will abandon the current file, without saving. Note that this is a change from EDLIN for DOS, which would automatically save the file for you. The prompt "Save this file? (Y/N)" was removed in the interest of speed, but WinEDLIN does expect you to save the file first. Exiting without first saving may cause undefined behavior, and is likely to format your hard drive. Chapter 4.5 - "MOVE" The MOVE command, represented as a stomach pump icon, will cause the online help to pop up, indexing the COPY and DELETE commands. Chapter 4.6 - "SEARCH" The SEARCH command, represented as a blender icon, works more efficiently than the search command of previous versions of EDLIN. While previous versions would only report the position of existing occurrences of the word or phrase being searched for, WinEDLIN will actually replace random words with the word or phrase that you are looking for, guaranteeing that the search result will be positive. To remove the new occurrences of text, see the DELETE command, above. Chapter 4.7 - "WRITE" The WRITE command, represented as a branding iron icon, will take the file out of memory, writing it to your disk at its original location. In the unlikely event that the Windows virtual swap file has written into that area, a data collision error will occur. Fortunately, this will cause defined, predictable behavior: Your hard drive will DEFINITELY be formatted. Chapter 5 - A Final Word We hope that you enjoy your copy of EDLIN for Windows, and find it to be well worth the $599.00 suggested retail price. Enclosed with this manual is a listing of other fine Microsoft products, such as Microsoft Format Fixer for Windows. Format Fixer is an advanced diagnostic program that detects and fixes the problems caused by one's hard drive being formatted. In the extremely unlikely event that this ever happens to you, Format Fixer will be invaluable, and is a great value at $1099.00. Act now and get a 10% discount, as a registered user of WinEDLIN! Thank you for choosing Microsoft - the software that changes the way you use your computer! ======================================================================== Disclaimer: Microsoft, Windows, and probably even EDLIN, are all trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. This file is a parody, and was not written with permission from Microsoft, since they wouldn't accept any of my collect calls. Any similarity to actual products would be funny as hell, since I doubt even Microsoft is that dumb. Any similarity to actual events exist only in the mind of Jason Levine, the author of this twisted little piece of work.
Back to my Computer Jokes Page
Back to my humor page
Back to my home page