Hi,

The following is some excerpts from some Coda's document (I think
Michale Callahan wrote it) for the decription of a deadlock problem in doing
a user-level Windows 95 port and the rationale for going with
a DOS application implementation of most of the Coda client code.

-------------- excerpts start ----------
"Why DOS applications??  It would seem more straightforward to
implement the Coda client cache manager, a user level program named
Venus, as a Win32 application.  Sadly on Windows 95 we ran into the
following (fairly well known) problem.  When a user application calls
a Win32 file system call, the application may acquire a mutex in a
win16 system dll.  The request should reach the kernel, and make its
way up to Venus.  Venus is then unable to service the request because
it cannot grab the mutex. Deadlock results."
--------------- excerpts end ------------

This makes me wonder how NFS and Netware clients are implemented on Windows 95.
Did they implement the whole thing in the kernel or somehow they got a solution
to the problem?   If so, can't Coda use the same solution?  Is the deadlock
problem somehow unique to Coda?

Shyh-Wei Luan

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