Printing Slow in DOS

[Michael Jennings]

The customer has a DOS program that is important. There is no Windows equivalent.

The printing is very slow to start. There is a long delay before the first
character is printed, and then printing is at normal speed.

How can we make the printing start immediately in Windows XP Professional, as
it does in Windows 98 SE?

The application uses both an HP1200 LaserJet and a Panasonic KXP-1124 dot
matrix printer. The printing starts slowly on both.

Both printers are connected to LPT ports, LPT1: and LPT2:

Changing the System.ini file did not work.

 

[Rob Schneider]

The customer has a DOS program that is important. There is no Windows
equivalent.

The printing is very slow to start. There is a long delay before the
first character is printed, and then printing is at normal speed.

How can we make the printing start immediately in Windows XP
Professional, as it does in Windows 98 SE?

The application uses both an HP1200 LaserJet and a Panasonic KXP-1124
dot matrix printer. The printing starts slowly on both.

Both printers are connected to LPT ports, LPT1: and LPT2:

Changing the System.ini file did not work.

There are documented issues with printing from "dos box" programs in
Windows XP. Some functionality that existed in previous versions of
Windows which were more closely tied to DOS has been removed with the
removal of large parts of DOS from Windows. I don't know (or want to
know) details. I do know that some problems are not resolvable. XP is
not an operating system to move to if compatibility with older DOS
programs is essential. You may wish to keep things simple by simply
running the program on a Windows 98 SE box and avoid trying to debug this.

Start at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308028
for guidance.

 

[NobodyMan]

There are documented issues with printing from "dos box" programs in
Windows XP. Some functionality that existed in previous versions of
Windows which were more closely tied to DOS has been removed with the
removal of large parts of DOS from Windows. I don't know (or want to
know) details. I do know that some problems are not resolvable. XP is
not an operating system to move to if compatibility with older DOS
programs is essential. You may wish to keep things simple by simply
running the program on a Windows 98 SE box and avoid trying to debug this.

True true true. If you have DOS programs that are having problems
running in XP, for the most part you may probably just have to live
with it, or move back to a DOS based OS.

Oh, and XP didn't have a large part of DOS removed from it...it had
all of DOS removed from it. It is not DOS based at all.