The Program Information File (PIF) File Format


Original Documentation

The Program Information Files have stayed a long time with the PC. They origi-
nated from IBMs Topview, were carried on by DoubleView and DesqView, and today
they are used by Windows and Windows NT. The PIF files store additional
information about executables that are foreign to the running multitasking
system such as ressource usage, keyboard and mouse virtualization and hotkeys.
The original (Topview) PIF had a size of 171h bytes, after that, there come the
various extensions for the different operating environments. The different
extensions are discussed in their own sections.

OFFSET              Count TYPE   Description
0000h                   1 byte   reserved
0001h                   1 byte   Checksum
0002h                  30 char   Title for the window
0020h                   1 word   Maximum memory reserved for program
0022h                   1 word   Minimum memory reserved for program
0024h                  63 char   Path and filename of the program
0063h                   1 byte   0 - Do not close window on exit
								 other - Close window on exit
0064h                   1 byte   Default drive (0=A: ??)
0065h                  64 char   Default startup directory
00A5h                  64 char   Parameters for program
00E5h                   1 byte   Initial screen mode, 0 equals mode 3 ?
00E6h                   1 byte   Text pages to reserve for program
00E7h                   1 byte   First interrupt used by program
00E8h                   1 byte   Last interrupt used by program
00E9h                   1 byte   Rows on screen
00EAh                   1 byte   Columns on screen
00EBh                   1 byte   X position of window
00ECh                   1 byte   Y position of window
00EDh                   1 word   System memory ?? whatever
00EFh                  64 char   ?? Shared program path
012Fh                  64 char   ?? Shared program data file
016Fh                   1 word   Program flags

EXTENSION:PIF,DVP
OCCURENCES:PC
PROGRAMS:Topview, DesqView, Windows
REFERENCE:see DDJ #202, July 1993, QuarterDeck SDK
SEE ALSO:Windows PIF, Windows NT PIF
VALIDATION:

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