User Info File Maintenance refers to maintaining your USERS.INF file.
Because the USERS.INF file is so flexible there are a lot of functions you can use, although not nearly so many as with the USERS file alone.
Everything you will need to do with the USERS.INF file will be controlled from the menu that will appear after you select User Info File Maintenance from the System Manager Main Menu.

The size of the USERS.INF file is dynamic. This means it can grow or shrink based on the components installed inside of the file. For example, PCBoard stores the last message read pointers in this file. As you would expect, the more conferences that you have, the bigger the file will be because you have more last message read pointers to store.

To make sure your USERS.INF file is properly configured for the number of conferences you have installed on your system, select this menu option. If you see an error message that says Need to update User Info File Conference Allocations, you need to select this menu option to properly insure that your USERS.INF file is properly sized. If you receive this previously mentioned error message, you will need to load System Manager from the DOS prompt because you will not be able to access it from the call-waiting screen.
Simply change to your PCBoard subdirectory and execute PCBSM.EXE.

When you select this menu option you will see a status report about your USERS.INF file. Each section is detailed in the following sections.

This lists the total number of conferences you have defined for your system.
PCBoard determines this number by reading the PCBOARD.DAT that System Manager reads when it loaded and looking at what is set for the Number of Highest Conference Desired in PCBSetup | Configuration Options | Messages. System Manager then adds one to this number to account for the Main Board.

For this reason, it becomes important that if you increase the maximum number of conferences desired, you should also update every PCBOARD.DAT you use on your system. Otherwise, you can find yourself repeatedly updating conference allocations because you have a different amount of conferences available depending on which PCBOARD.DAT is read.

This field will report how many extended conferences you have (or 0 for none). Any conferences above the first 40 are considered to be extended conferences. This is simply a name reference and does not signify a difference between conferences. The name reference is used because earlier versions of PCBoard supported 40 conferences which has long since been surpassed.

This field will tell you how many static bytes will be allocated for each record. Static allocations are not dependent on the number of conferences.

Dynamic allocations are dependent on the number of conferences you have allocated on your system. As the number of conferences on your system increases, so will the dynamic allocations on your system.

After the report of allocations and total conferences on your system, you will see one of the following messages:

None of the above allocations require upgrading at this time…

WARNING: One or more of the above allocations requires updating

If you see the former message, you do not have to worry about updating your conference allocations. However, if you see the latter message, you must update your conference allocations or you will not be able to load PCBoard.

This menu function will list all of the third party allocation (TPA) and PCBoard support allocation (PSA) areas that are currently installed. TPAs are areas in your USERS.INF file reserved for specific third party applications. PSAs are specific features you can add such as full address support, alias support, etc.

When you choose this menu option, you will see a list of all TPA and PSA areas that are installed on your system.

If you have not installed any TPAs or PSAs, you will be notified that you do not have any installed. If you do have one or more installed, System Manager will display information about each one.

The first piece of information will display if the allocation is a PSA or a TPA followed by the name of the allocation. Even though you may not need to know any additional information, you will also be shown the version number and the total static/dynamic space allocated for each user. For TPAs, System Manager will also show you the Key information which is used by each third party program.

From this menu option, you can install a PCBoard Supported Allocations (PSA).
These give you the ability add functionality to your system such as alias or full-address support. For more information on adding a PSA please see the Adding a PSA section in this chapter.

Simply select the PSA you wish to remove from your system. Before System Manager removes the PSA it will ask to confirm that you really wish to delete it. For additional information, please see the Removing A PSA section in this chapter.

A TPA gives a third party application the ability to have PCBoard reserve space in the USERS.INF file for its use. Most applications will use this reserved area or allocation to store information about each user. Using this method, an application does not have to create a separate data file to store redundant user information, nor does it have to worry about maintaining this file of active user data. The TPA is actually part of the USERS.INF file, so when a user is deleted from your system, all TPA information for that user is deleted too.

Normally, you will only install a TPA if the application you are installing explicitly tells you to setup a TPA in System Manager.

When you choose to add a TPA, you will be asked to enter the TPA name. Enter the name in this field as specified by the author of the application. If you do not, the application may error upon loading because the wrong name was entered in this field.

If you enter the name of a TPA which already exists, the existing information will be displayed and you can edit the fields as your needs dictate.

Once you have entered a new application name, you will be asked to specify the version number, static allocation, dynamic allocation, and a keyword.
The author of the application should provide the values you should enter for everything except keyword.

To remove a TPA, you must know the name. If you do not know the name, you can use the List Installed PSA/TPA Areas menu option for a list of installed allocations. When you enter the name of the TPA that you wish to remove, System Manager will check to see if it exists. If it does, you will be asked to confirm that you wish to remove the TPA. If you choose to remove it, all data stored in the TPA will be lost as it is removed from the USERS.INF file.

Normally you will not need to create your USERS.INF file because PCBoard will take care of that for you. However, if you lose the file or if it becomes corrupt beyond repair, you may elect to recreate the file.

If System Manager detects a USERS.INF file when you attempt to re-create it, you will be warned that it already exists and will be asked to confirm that you want to recreate the file. Recreating the file will cause all TPA information to be lost as well as the loss of some conference information for all conferences numbered 40 and above.