WJB05,
I believe you mentioned that you had already tried compatibility mode quite a bit earlier in the thread. Did I misunderstand? You can run a program in compatibility mode by right-clicking on the executable itself, or on the shortcut to the executable, and choosing Properties from the right-click context menu. There is a Compatibility tab on the Properties dialog from which you can choose various compatibility options. I was certain from your earlier description that you had already found this dialog. The compatibility mode that johnlog is talking about is to be found in this dialog. But he's using Windows ME as a basis for comparison, and it is quite different from Windows XP. The AUTOEXEC.NT and CONFIG.NT files for general use with DOS executables OR specific versions of them to be used with specific DOS executables I mentioned earlier are some additional tools you can use to try to help a DOS program perform properly in Windows XP. Unfortunately, I only started really using MS operating systems with the advent of Windows 2000. The only DOS application I have on my machine with which to test hypotheses is the old DOS text editor, EDIT.COM. If your particular problematic DOS program needs to have specific variables set that are not covered by the Properties dialog for the DOS window (more about that below) then you may be able to set them by using these special files.
<< I then right-clicked on the window and (to my surprise) after checking "Full Screen" the program was fulls screen! However, when I tried to do this again, the right-click menu would not appear. How can I repeat this and can I create a batch file attached to a short-cut to make it easier to bring this program up? >>
I'm having a little difficulty visualizing exactly where you are. Let me tell you what I suspect may be the case, and you can tell me whether I'm right or wrong.
When you ran the DOS executable from the Start | Run dialog it came up in a Window. In order to get to the place where you set it to be running in full screen mode you right-clicked on the title bar of the Window and chose Properties. The Properties dialog would have had something along the lines of "C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntvdm.exe" in its title bar. On the first tabbed page (Options) of that dialog you clicked on the Full Screen setting under Display Options. When you clicked on the OK button you should have been presented with an Apply Properties dialog that allowed you to choose between applying this feature to the current window only or to all future sessions of windows with the same title. If you chose the latter, then every time you run a DOS program the NT Virtual DOS Machine (ntvdm.exe) window in which the DOS program runs would come up full screen. The problem with that is that right-clicking on the title bar in the full screen mode doesn't get you a properties box because you're not running the program in a "window" any more. If this is the course of events that got you to where you are now, then all you have to do to get out of the situation is to start the program, hit the Alt-Enter key combination, and you'll see the program restored to running in the windowed mode. Right-clicking on the title bar will once again get you the properties dialog for the NT Virtual DOS Machine, and you should be able to choose Font and Layout properties for your program.
If the above is the case then you should pay particular attention to those Font and Layout properties. They could very well be all you need to adjust to get this program straightened out. The default properties for the ntvdm are, among other things, a setting for a standard 80 column DOS text display. If your program was designed to display information in some other mode than 80 column mode you could very well wind up with a distorted display -- but that would depend upon features of this executable at which I can only guess at present. But you should possibly try different combinations to see if you can come up with a better appearance and function for the program.
As you can see the use of the compatibility features and properties dialogs is complex enough that discussing it all via message thread requires a high degree of specificity on the part of the participants in the thread. If I haven't figured out your situation properly, I'm going to need for you to be much more specific than you have been in describing the exact steps you are taking and the exact appearance of the screen at each step in the process if we are to have any hope of figuring our way through this little quagmire.
One other type of information may be very helpful here. If you look at the machines upon which this program is running properly and get the contents of the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files, as well as the contents of any batch file that is used to start the program, those contents might tell us a lot about how the system environment is being "customized" to run the program properly. So you might want to post that information.
Another tack we could take is for us to converse by private message and to arrange for you to send me a copy of the program via e-mail so that I might test it on one of my own systems to see if I can come up with anything. This may not be the optimum means of proceeding if there are many support files for this executable (which would have to be included) or if you are unable to find and send me all of the relevant system environment settings that are being customized on the machines upon which the program performs properly.
If we can get this program figured out, we can create a shortcut to the executable that will make use of all of the information we have gained about running the program under an NT-based operating system so that the program starts up looking just like you want it to when you double-click on the shortcut.
One final point would be that, unless this executable is very highly specialized and proprietary, you might very well find a substitute for it that will run without any trouble under Windows XP. If you wish to explore this possibility you should post as precise a description as possible of its capabilities in the software forum to see if someone knows of a possible Windows-compatible program that provides the same functions.
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. Hectic days, these.
- Collin
Facebook
Twitter