HASH OPTION IN FTP CLIENT SLOWS DOWNLOADS

Windows 98 includes a command-line version of the File Transfer Protocol (ftp) client (ftp.exe), which is used to upload and download files to and from ftp servers.

ftp://ftp.exe/

The ftp.exe program is automatically installed with the installation of the TCP/IP protocol. On Windows 98, it's an ftp protocol within the TCP/IP "family" of protocols. The program includes a number of command- line options, one of which is

Hash
This turns on the printing of a hash (#) sign with every 2048 bytes transferred. For example ftp> put c:\winme.rtf 200 PORT command successful.

150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for winme.rtf.

##

226 Transfer complete.

ftp: 5956 bytes sent in 0.03Seconds 198.53Kbytes/sec.

This is useful as a type of progress bar. But according to Microsoft, having the option switched on can severely impinge on the performance of the command-line ftp client in Windows 98. If this bad performance on your system becomes apparent, you can turn the hash option off. Simply type "hash" again at the command line.