Re: newbie questions

"Frank Kotler" wrote...
: As cr88192 points out, with XP there's no dos, noplace. However, the
: situation is not all *that* bad - XP provides a "fake dos" - a whole
: fake 16-bit computer, essentially - so your code should run, if you can
: get it assembled and linked. There are some things that *don't* work
: exactly like real dos, but *this* code should be okay...

Microsoft might call it an NT Virtual DOS Machine (ntvdm.exe). It
starts up when you start up any 16-bit code and it runs that 16-bit
code. I don't know the full history on it, so I'll leave someone else to
offer some better help there.

: It *may* be possible to set up RadAsm to generate 16-bit code.
: But I suspect it's a world of pain. If you're going to work through
: the examples in your book, it'll probably be easier to work from a
: command prompt, as I assume the book does it. I'm not even sure
: how to *get* a command prompt from XP - start->run->"command"
: should do it...

cmd.exe starts up a 32-bit command (Windows) console.
command.com starts up ntvdm.exe and runs inside of that.

command.com has some interesting properties, just create a shortcut
to it if you want to explore those properties. There's a way to get it
to load a specific config.sys and autoexec.bat. There's also a
_default.pif which is just a shortcut to a command.com. One can create
a shortcut to that as well. NOTE: .pif files are the names of the shortcuts
to .com files. Right clicking on them, then clicking on Properties
takes one to a set of properties for it. Then clicking on the Program
tab in the ensuing dialog provides a couple buttons. Click on the
Advanced button to change which Autoexec.nt and which config.nt
get loaded when you click on the link. This provides a way to
load ANSI.SYS.

There is also an "MS-DOS Prompt.pif" link. XP tends to hide the
extensions on .lnk and .pif files, so one typically needs to fix that
problem to be able to see the extensions with Explorer.

To fix that problem, one needs to use the registry editor. regedt32
or regedit for Windows XP. Scroll down to the following keys...
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\piffile

Each one has a NeverShowExt subkey. Just rename each by
putting an "X" in front of it.

Something else to try is to search for NeverShowExt through the
whole registry. There might be another one or two other keys that
get that subkey in them.

That's all I'll comment on at this moment. Time to grab that code
the OP posted and play with it.

--
Jim Carlock
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