"alanb" said in news:
[email protected]:
Since dosx.exe is existing in Windows\system32 path on my pc running
on XP. Should I rewrite set path in atuoexec.nt to
set path =<path>\dosx.exe;Windows\system32 replacing %path%
as explained in your reply. Also put this in the beginning. So that
it will direct first to this path for this application. I am
confused because you say autoexec.nt is run in DOSSHELL. IT appears
from your comment that booting WindowsXP never use autoexec.nt at all.
I dont know how to start DOSSHELL.. LEt me know if I can open and
start dosshell on Windows XP. This application was written in 1995.
Pretty old already?
*Vanguard* said:
"alanb" said in news:
[email protected]:
I tried to install an demo application on windows xp, but I got an
error message displaying about path; needing to put dosx.exe into
autoexec.nt since it is now in protected mode. I was copying and
pasting autoexec.nt below and see about the possibility of adding
dosx.exe into the path. I dont know how. Does windowsxp during boot
uses autoexec.nt?
Let me know. Thanks.
==============================================================
@echo off
REM AUTOEXEC.BAT is not used to initialize the MS-DOS environment.
REM AUTOEXEC.NT is used to initialize the MS-DOS environment unless
a
REM different startup file is specified in an application's PIF.
REM Install CD ROM extensions
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\mscdexnt.exe
REM Install network redirector (load before dosx.exe)
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\redir
REM Install DPMI support
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\dosx
REM The following line enables Sound Blaster 2.0 support on NTVDM.
REM The command for setting the BLASTER environment is as follows:
REM SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330
REM where:
REM A specifies the sound blaster's base I/O port
REM I specifies the interrupt request line
REM D specifies the 8-bit DMA channel
REM P specifies the MPU-401 base I/O port
REM T specifies the type of sound blaster card
REM 1 - Sound Blaster 1.5
REM 2 - Sound Blaster Pro I
REM 3 - Sound Blaster 2.0
REM 4 - Sound Blaster Pro II
REM 6 - SOund Blaster 16/AWE 32/32/64
REM
REM The default value is A220 I5 D1 T3 and P330. If any of the
switches is
REM left unspecified, the default value will be used. (NOTE, since
all the
REM ports are virtualized, the information provided here does not
have to
REM match the real hardware setting.) NTVDM supports Sound Blaster
2.0 only.
REM The T switch must be set to 3, if specified.
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 T3
REM To disable the sound blaster 2.0 support on NTVDM, specify an
invalid
REM SB base I/O port address. For example:
REM SET BLASTER=A0
Must be dinosaur software to require it run in a DOS shell under
Windows. Because of all the Soundblaster settings (and assuming that
is the sound card you have), my guess this is a demo for a really
old game.
config.nt and autoexec.nt get ran when you open an MS-DOS shell or
application. In autoexec.nt, add:
set path=<path>\dosx.exe;%path%
before wherever within this [incomplete] batch file it runs that
DOS-only demo program. This prepends the path to dos.exe before
whatever was previously defined in the path environment variable.
Troubleshooting MS-DOS-Based Programs in Windows
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314106
How to Troubleshoot 16-Bit Windows Programs in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314495
Error Message When You Install or Start an MS-DOS or 16-Bit Windows
Based Program
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=324767
DOS shell = command prompt
The phrases are used interchangeably. You've never open a DOS shell (aka
command prompt)? Look under Start -> Programs -> Accessories. The
installation default will put a shortcut there called "Command Prompt".
Alternatively, use the Start -> Run menu to run "cmd.exe" (you really don't
need to include the .exe extension). That's a DOS shell. When you
installed the DOS-only program, it runs in a DOS shell. The shortcut to it
uses a .pif (program information) file that defines how the shell will
behave while it is loaded to run that program. I don't have any .pif files
for DOS-only applications to check but I believe it specified autoexec.nt
and config.nt as the default files to use when loading whatever program that
..pif shortcut is for. You can specify different startup files for that
application's DOS shell, especially if the standard startup won't work or
you have special needs for just that application that you don't want to
include in other DOS-only applications that are currently configured to
share and use the same autoexec.nt and config.nt.
Use the shortcut mentioned for "Command Prompt". You get a plain DOS window
with a command prompt. A prompt is where it waits for user input to the
command interpreter (cmd.exe); DOS and 95-based Windows use command.com for
the command-line interpreter that runs in the shell to accept your DOS
commands, cmd.exe is used in Windows 2000/XP (althought command.com is also
there for compatibility with batch files). After you open Command Prompt,
enter the command:
path
This will show the current paths stored in the PATH environment variable.
Since you are creating a shortcut to a specific program and that DOS shell
will remain loaded only for the duration of that program, you usually want
the path needed to any of that program's files at the beginning of the PATH
environment variable (to speedup finding the file and to ensure other
same-named files in other specified paths don't get used). If the file is
not in the current working directory then it looks through the paths in the
order they are listed in the PATH environment variable.
Yes, autoexec.nt and config.nt only get used when you open a .pif file used
to define the DOS shell used to run the DOS-only application. I only
glanced at one KB article that discussed PIF files and saw mention that
these are the default files and you can change to different files. Even
back in 95-based Windows, the autoexec.bat and config.sys files did NOT get
used again after you had loaded the Windows GUI. Instead there was a
dosstart.bat file where you included additional commands needed when a DOS
shell (within Windows) got loaded. In the same manner, autoexec.nt and
config.nt get used in Windows XP when you use a PIF file to open a DOS shell
within Windows to run a DOS-only program. The DOS shell in Windows XP is
actually called NTVDM (NT Virtual DOS Machine) because [MS-]DOS is not
included nor needed in NT-based versions of Windows.
I did not say to replace %path% with anything. Environment variables are
denoted by surrounding them with percent signs. I was a bit off in what I
meant to illustrate, so the added command should really look like:
set path=<path_to_dosx.exe>;%path%
means you only edit whatever is the path to find dosx.exe. You leave the
%path% there because it gets replaced with whatever is the current value of
the PATH environment variable. You replace the <path_to_dosx.exe> with
whatever is the path to that file. Since the path to dosx.exe is under
C:\Windows\System32 then you would add:
set path=C:\Windows\System32\; %path%
However, when you opened a DOS shell (aka Command Prompt) and ran the "path"
command to see its current definition, wasn't the C:\Windows\System32 path
already listed? It is on mine. If the path to dosx.exe is already included
in the PATH environment in a DOS shell then you don't need to add it again
(unless you want the search path to find it before anything else, which you
might want if there were multiple different files with the same name).
Environment variables in the parent shell get inherited by child shells
(Windows is the parent shell and the command prompt you opened is a child
shell).
I looked at my autoexec.nt and it already has a bunch of commands in there,
one of which is for dosx (it doesn't need to include the .exe extension to
run it). In fact, my autoexec.nt looks the same as yours (and I don't run
DOS-only games or applications so it is the generic unmodified version that
got installed). The path to dosx.exe doesn't need to be specified in the
PATH environment variable because the fully qualified path to it is
specified in the call to load it. You only need to add paths to PATH when
you want to only specify the filename to run a program rather than the
complete path to it. That is, running "dosx" requires that it can be found
in one of the paths listed in PATH, but running
"c:\windows\system32\dosx.exe" tells where to find the file so PATH isn't
used to find the file. By the way, the "lh" prefix shown on several lines
is the loadhigh command which is embedded into the command interpreter
(cmd.exe) so you won't find it anywhere as a separate file.
I doubt the autoexec.nt file is bad. You could do the following so you can
see if the error message is occuring when autoexec.nt is executed (when
opening a DOS shell):
- Comment out the "echo off" command at the start by changing it to "REM
@echo off". This will echo out each command shown in the batch file as it
get loaded into the command interpreter so you can see the commands getting
executed.
- Put the following 2 lines at the bottom of autoexec.nt so you know when
you have reached the end of that batch file (and don't get confused with
whatever program or batch file then gets executed afterward for the game or
application):
echo DONE! (autoexec.nt has completed execution)
pause
You then have to hit a key when autoexec.nt completes it execution to run
whatever gets loaded to run the game or application. You should then see
each command in the DOS window as it gets ran so you can see just where the
error occurs. If the error does not occur when autoexec.nt got executed,
remember to remove these "got here" debug lines and to uncomment the "echo
off" line so you don't see all the output and get prompted to hit a key for
all other DOS programs you may run on this computer. I doubt the error
occurs when running autoexec.nt; otherwise, LOTS of users would've already
bitched about this. I suspect the batch file or executable that gets ran
for your DOS-only game or application is screwed up. If the DOS-only
program uses a batch file then add "set path=c:\windows\system32;%path%"
command in the program's batch file. I don't know why their batch file
would see a different value for PATH than did autoexec.nt unless they
changed the PATH environment variable and didn't include %path% or didn't
include c:\windows\system32. Perhaps this DOS-only program was originally
supported only on Windows 95/98 and dosx.exe's location is different on
those operating systems, or maybe not even included and it came with the
DOS-only program.
If it's a DOS-only program from back in 1995 then it probably was never
designed to support NT-based versions of Windows. It may have ran in a DOS
shell within Windows 9x. Or perhaps it actually exited the Windows GUI and
reverted to DOS-only mode (i.e., Windows isn't running anymore) to run that
program, and when the program was exited then Windows got reloaded. You
configure in the PIF if the DOS program runs in a shell or requires exiting
Windows and running in DOS-only mode (also called real DOS mode).
The shortcut to the DOS-only program probably points to a PIF file. That
PIF file, when you look at the Properties for the shortcut, will tell you
what file it loads to start the program. Is that a .bat file or an .exe or
..com file? If it is a .bat (batch) file, do the same in it as mentioned
above for autoexec.nt by commenting out an "echo off" line, if it exists.
Then you can see for which command the error occurs.
