These are the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - below, we have tried to answer the most common questions visitors to this web site may have. If you find that your question is not answered on this page, please contact us.

1. What is eComStation?
It is an Operating System, like Linux, UNIX or Windows, which runs on PC type computers - those with Intel, or AMD, or similar processors. This includes desktop machines, laptops, and servers.  It won't run on Apple Macs. It also has application software included or available as an option which provide features such as word processing, spreadsheets, email, internet access, electronic diary / planner, and more.

2. Is it like Windows?
Yes and no!  It looks similar, with a screen with icons that you click to start programs, edit documents, surf the Internet, send and receive e-mails and so on, but internally the design is different. It is structured in a way that makes it inherently more stable, more controllable, better at multi-tasking, and very much less likely to be infected with viruses, worms and ``Trojan horse" software.

3. Where does it come from?
eComStation is produced and distributed by Serenity Systems, a US-based company who are an ``Original Equipment Manufacturer" (OEM) and it is based on IBM's OS/2 operating system.  Serenity has produced a new installation process which caters for the myriad configurations of computers in the real world, and makes it easy to install and configure. They have put in place agreements with other software suppliers to be able include things like hardware drivers, application programs, browser plug-ins and so on.

4. OS/2?  Isn't that a dead system?
Absolutely not!  It is widely used throughout the world by large corporations, such as International Banks, who need security, safety and reliability in their systems, and who don't just follow the crowd for the sake of it.  Updates to the system are still being produced regularly, and eComStation users are licensed to download and install these.  As just one example, Scitech produce the graphics drivers and they are continually adding support for new graphics chips as they are introduced.

5. What's the Bad News?
Well, you wont be able to run Microsoft software - Word, Outlook, and so on. But the Good News is that because of that you can't ``catch" the viruses written to take advantage of these - e-mail viruses generally need Outlook or Exchange to cause an infection, VBA-script worms need Microsoft's Office to run, and so on.  And in eComStation there is no ``backdoor" code to allow access to your system without your knowledge or approval.

6. But what if I want to run Windows programs?
There are a number of options:
(a) Some software written to run under Windows will run under eComStation, along with any DOS and OS/2-specific programs.
(b) There is a package called ``Odin" which mimics the Windows environment as far as the software is concerned, and some Windows software can run under this. The German company Innotek is very active in this area, making the Windows Acrobat Reader available to eComStation users, for example.
(c) eComStation is quite happy to coexist on a machine that has Windows (and/or Linux) installed, and it comes with ``Boot Manager" which allows you to choose which Operating System you want to start when you Boot up. They can share areas of disk space so that you can get to the same data in each Operating System.
(d) In the pipeline is a ``Virtual Machine" package from Serenity Systems, called Serenity Virtual Station (SVISTA).  This allows one Operating System to be started up and run within another - so they are both running together, on one machine.  This will be available for Linux, Windows, OS/2 and eComStation, so that you may run programs from any and all of these at once!  You need a reasonably powerful PC to make this viable, but that is the norm these days anyway.

7. Can I surf the Internet with eComStation?
Absolutely - and you have a choice of browsers too!  eComStation comes with ``IBM Web Browser" which is based on Mozilla and allows you to browse the web, send and receive e-mail, read and take part in Newsgroups, and compose your own web pages.  It has the ``Tabbed browsing" feature that allows more than one web page to be open at once, with tabs at the top to select which one you see. Much faster and easier than having multiple browser windows open!
The latest version of Mozilla itself is available, which does all of this and adds chatting on IRC, Junk Mail controls and other features.
Mozilla Firefox is also available, which is a cut down version of Mozilla aimed at just browsing, to speed up loading. Java and Javascript are available, and Innotek have produced a ``Web Package" that adds Macromedia Flash capabilities, an improved Font-Rendering engine (improves the look of text on web sites), and their latest Java package.