Running a Windows 95 application in Windows 2000

[Guest]

I have an application that was originally designed to run in Windows 95 but I am trying to use in Windows 2000 Professional. I was able to install and get the application running by creating a shortcut to the program I want to run and then choosing compatibility mode and Windows 95 Compatibility Layer. However, when I try to open a template in the program I get the following error

"An error occured while attempting to initialize the Borland Database Engine

I have run this same application in Windows 98 by installing from the same installation medium and without installing any Borland Database Engine separately. I would assume from this that Windows 95/98 both have some built-in database engine or something masquerading as a database engine

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[DL]

If you have an app developed using the Borland db its likely that the BDE is
installed with the app, as apposed to being included within Win*.
Not running may be down to the win2k code being, as I understand it,
radically different to win95/98.
You *may* find a solution at Borland if the BDE runtime is downloadable, as
MIDAC etc is for Win.

I have an application that was originally designed to run in Windows 95

but I am trying to use in Windows 2000 Professional. I was able to install
and get the application running by creating a shortcut to the program I want
to run and then choosing compatibility mode and Windows 95 Compatibility
Layer. However, when I try to open a template in the program I get the
following error:

"An error occured while attempting to initialize the Borland Database Engine"

I have run this same application in Windows 98 by installing from the same

installation medium and without installing any Borland Database Engine
separately. I would assume from this that Windows 95/98 both have some
built-in database engine or something masquerading as a database engine.

 

[Dan Seur]

As DL points out, the problem may relate to the differences between the
W98 sys (a nice user interface built on top of the old DOS) and the W2k
sys (which is radically different, does not include a real DOS, and for
convenience does include a DOS emulator.) The principal meaningful
difference between the 2 approaches is that the real DOS underlying
W95-class systems allows apps to directly manipulate hardware; the W2k
(and all NT-class systems) emulator prevents this. An application
written such that it must have direct hardware control is simply not
supported. A "well-written" DOS program that uses only the general DOS
APIs will run well under the emulator; it's the clever, fine-tuned
machine code embedded in some DOS apps (generally performance-oriented,
like advanced games and sophisticated DB engines and the like) that
hiccup catastrophically.

If there's a newer BDE written for the NT-class systems, and it's really
backward compatible, it might not be too difficult to find a way around
your problem - if the problem has to do with the above.

 

[Guest]

Thank you both for your help, I will see if I can find some sort of workaround using your suggestions

----- Justin wrote: ----

I have an application that was originally designed to run in Windows 95 but I am trying to use in Windows 2000 Professional. I was able to install and get the application running by creating a shortcut to the program I want to run and then choosing compatibility mode and Windows 95 Compatibility Layer. However, when I try to open a template in the program I get the following error

"An error occured while attempting to initialize the Borland Database Engine

I have run this same application in Windows 98 by installing from the same installation medium and without installing any Borland Database Engine separately. I would assume from this that Windows 95/98 both have some built-in database engine or something masquerading as a database engine

Thank you in advance for any help.