The NetWare Server boot delay program (Wait.exe) was written to provide a mechanism for stopping a server from booting and to gain access to the DOS partition. This requirement has become more relevant recently due to processors being faster and subsequently by the time you see "Starting MS-DOS" and attempt to press F5 or F8, the volumes have been mounted and the users have logged in. I'm not saying that NetWare needs to be rebooted often or that it is necessary to get to the DOS files on a frequent basis, but if you need to, here's the tool ;-).

Wait.exe expects one parameter, which is the number of seconds to wait. This should be a number between 5 and 60, it will default to 30 seconds if it's outside these bounds. If no parameter is specified, or wait.exe can't make any sense of it, it defaults to 30 seconds.

Wait.exe will capture Ctrl-C and Ctrl-Break and ask for confirmation. Pressing any other key will stop the timer, set the error level accordingly and bypass the normal server startup sequence.

Included is a suitable autoexec.bat - modify it if you need to, but it should suffice.

I've had this program in use on hundreds of NW servers without a problem. I'm not claiming it's perfect, but there's not much to go wrong anyway. Usual disclaimers apply.

It's a freebie but if you find it useful, let me know; better still, buy me a beer.