One of these days, I will get an answer

T

Tony Girgenti

Hello,

When printing to a LPT1 printer on parallel port through
a DOS program, we get the error "NTVDM has encountered a
SYStem Error. The parameter is incorrect.
Choose 'Close' to terminate the application". "Close
button and Ignore button" displayed.

If we click CLOSE it terminates the DOS program. If we
click IGNORE, it prints anyway, but the meassage comes up
again.

Any help with this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Tony
 
P

Pete

Tony said:
Hello,

When printing to a LPT1 printer on parallel port through
a DOS program, we get the error "NTVDM has encountered a
SYStem Error. The parameter is incorrect.
Choose 'Close' to terminate the application". "Close
button and Ignore button" displayed.

If we click CLOSE it terminates the DOS program. If we
click IGNORE, it prints anyway, but the meassage comes up
again.

Any help with this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Tony

I'm new to XP myself, but from lurking here I've learned that the "cmd"
window in XP is NOT the same as DOS, although it looks like it. Not all
DOS programs will work in XP.

See http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/N/NTVDM.html
and then you can start with this:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314106

Note the following sentence from KB 314106: "This means that Windows
does not support 16-bit programs that require unrestricted access to
hardware. If your program requires this, your program will not work in
Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP."

AFAIK, this usually means old game programs that attempt to boost
performance by running the display, etc., directly. But iIt could be
that your print program is doing something like this.

If the maker of your DOS program is still around, ask if it works with
XP.
 
T

Thomas Ferguson

NTVDM is the Windows NT (including Windows 2000 and XP) virtual DOS Manager.
It is a 16-bit virtual machine for running DOS and 16-bit windows
applications. Each DOS program is run in its own multi-threaded process.

The error indicates that the application is attempting to do something the
emulator cannot handle or do something that the emulator can handle if it is
done differently. I suspect the problem is occurring during printer initial
initialisation/handshaking. In any case, the situation is largely out of
your control since the fix involves changes to the application or emulator.

Hopefully, I am wrong and someone else can suggest a fix or work-around
better than this one: If possible, print the application's output to a file
located on a FAT partition on the HD. Later, boot the machine using a
bootable floppy or bootable CD. The disk will need the command processor.
Use the DOS copy command with the /b switch to copy the files to the
printer. If there is no FAT partition available on the HD you will either
have to create one or include a device driver on the floppy or CD that will
allow DOS to read using the NTFS file system and write or modify a
config.sys file to load it. I suspect it would be better to simply ignore
the error messages.

Good luck.
 

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