Cupertino, California-based Symantec Corp has announced Norton Utilities version 6.0 and says that a number of new features make it faster, more powerful and easier to use. Version 6.0 is compatible with MS-DOS 5.0, and despite suggestions that MS-DOS 5.0 now provides many of the facilities associated with Norton Utilities, Symantec says that it uses new MS-DOS 5.0 features to provide improved performance and ease of use. The Speed Disk is said to offer safe operation with the MS-DOS 5.0 Task Switcher, it works on larger disks and is claimed to be four times faster than the previous version. NDOS, a new program that adds MS-DOS enhancements and reduces the amount of memory required by MS-DOS, provides 200 new features and command line options. There is an improved full screen user interface and the ability to run every feature from the command line. The Norton Change Directory provides new prune and graft, copy and remove features for directory tree operations on networks and across drives. UnErase offers local and network file recovery when using Erase Protect, and File Fix ensures automatic repair of spreadsheet and database files. Terminate-stay-resident programs such as Erase Protect, Disk Monitor and Norton Cache, automatically load into high memory when it is available. Symantec says that terminate-stay-resident programs exploit MS DOS 5.0’s new memory manager and other memory managers like QEMM and 386MAX. Calibrate adjusts the interleave and tunes up the hard disk drive, and each executable program in Version 6.0 has been reduced by 40% for more efficient disk usage. The Norton Disk Doctor automatically solves more disk errors and provides repair of common disk problems, while the Norton Disk Doctor and Speed Disk can now use high memory to operate on very large disks. Also, UnErase and UnFormat have been enhanced to provide more comprehensive recovery on larger disks. System Information now reports on expanded and extended memory usage, and line utilities like Directory Sort, Line Print, File Attributes, File Size, File Date, Text Search and File Locate have been enhanced. Norton Cache is a Windows SmartDrive replacement, but it is said to be faster than both Smart Drive and the previous version of Norton Cache. It works in a mixed MS-DOS and Windows environment and Windows icons are provided for all programs. Norton UnErase uses DOS 5.0’s new Delete Tracking and Mirror File features, and Safe Format now supports 2.88Mb floppy disk formatting. The terminate and stay resident programs automatically load high using MS-DOS 5.0’s new memory manager, and Version 6.0 works with the new MS-DOS 5.0 Task Switcher to detect task switches, prevent interruption of disk and data repair operations and operate in a multi-tasking environment. In addition, Version 6.0 provides hypertext based help for MS-DOS, including the new MS-DOS 5.0 features. Norton Utilities 6.0 costs $180 and upgrades are $40. It operates on any machine running MS-DOS 2.0 or higher. Symantec is offering a joint promotion to MS-DOS and Norton Utilities users: those that buy or upgrade to MS-DOS 5.0 by August 31 can buy Norton Utilities 6.0 at the same time for $100.
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