Vista and DOS based applications

[Guest]

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum but bear with me.

A friend of mine uses an application called Trimmap which can best be
described as a survey design tool, kind of a precursor to CAD type
applications used today.
It is catered moreso for survey work and has a number of features that they
want to continue using.

The company just upgraded their computers and are running Vista and this has
caused all sorts of problems with Trimmap.
I suggested they use a DOS emulator (note, I'm not an IT consultant, I'm
just a friend) to try and get it running and this succeeded to a degree, with
the graphics being terrible.

Short of scrapping the software altogether (either Vista or Trimmap), does
anyone have any suggestions/links on how to resolve the graphics problems?

Regards,
Peter Hill

 

[Mac]

What did they upgrade from? They could consider a virtualized install of
whatever than OS was (with the DOS app installed as previously) in Vista
using Virtual PC from MS, or one of the other virtualization products like
VMware or VirtualBox...

 

[Guest]

Hey thanks for the reply.
I'll pass that on.

They upgraded from XP where they had to lower all the graphics settings to
their absolute minimums before the application would run correctly. I just
remembered this (from my experience) and have passed that tip on also.

Regards,
Pete Hill

 

[Andrew McLaren]

just a friend) to try and get it running and this succeeded to a degree,
with
the graphics being terrible.

Hi Peter

What "DOS emulator" did they use?

Vista supports MS-DOS applications, via the "NTVDM" or "NT Virtual DOS
Machine", basically a character-mode 80x25 screen which runs within the
normal command prompt Window. Support for DOS graphics programs in an NTVDM
is pretty basic - only a small subset of the old DOS mode graphics formats
are supported.

One solution I'd try out, would be to use Microsoft's Virtual PC. This is a
free download, from:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/virtualpc/default.mspx

Virtual PC runs as an application on Vista. So you get a single window on
the desktop, running alongside all your other windows for Outlook, Excel
etc. But inside the VPC Window, is a complete, self-contained x86 PC. You
can install an operating system, such as MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 95,
Windows XP in teh Virtual PC. When MS-DOS runs on Virtual PC, it has the
equivalent of a full, physical PC to play with, including an S3 Trio video
card. So, the full range of DOS Video modes are available. Many DOS apps
which cannot run in a NTVDM will run on DOS, running in a Virtual PC. With
VPC's "DOS VM Additions" drivers installed, performance is pretty fast (and
any modern machine run DOS super fast anyway .

Virtual PC was designed (in part) to solve exactly this sort of
compatibility problem. The software is free, so it's probably worth testing
to see if this solves it.

VMWare is also an excellent virtual PC solution; however it costs in teh
order of $100 per workstation.

Hope it helps,
Andrew

 

[Rod Carty]

Not being able to run the DOS window full screen is a big issue for one
of my retail clients. They use a DOS POS program and a part-screen
display means it is smaller and harder to read among other things. I
realize lots of people have the opinion that DOS is passe and "it's high
time to upgrade those old DOS apps to a Windows UI" but the reality is
there are valid reasons to use a DOS interface:
- It's fast, much faster than any GUI I've seen, so unless the retail
store is willing to spend extra money to get extra-fast computers, DOS
makes the better choice. When you have a lineup of customers, speed is
very important.
- DOS full screen makes it so minimum-wage, barely computer-literate
(even today not everyone knows how or even wants to know how to use a
computer) till personnel can learn the keystrokes required to ring in
purchases without having to learn the Windows UI as well. This
eliminates many support issues as well as making training much faster.

So, my question is this, is there any hope of Microsoft adding
full-screen DOS support to Vista?

Hi Peter

What "DOS emulator" did they use?

Vista supports MS-DOS applications, via the "NTVDM" or "NT Virtual DOS
Machine", basically a character-mode 80x25 screen which runs within the
normal command prompt Window. Support for DOS graphics programs in an
NTVDM is pretty basic - only a small subset of the old DOS mode graphics
formats are supported.

One solution I'd try out, would be to use Microsoft's Virtual PC. This
is a free download, from:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/virtualpc/default.mspx

Virtual PC runs as an application on Vista. So you get a single window
on the desktop, running alongside all your other windows for Outlook,
Excel etc. But inside the VPC Window, is a complete, self-contained x86
PC. You can install an operating system, such as MS-DOS, Windows 3.x,
Windows 95, Windows XP in teh Virtual PC. When MS-DOS runs on Virtual
PC, it has the equivalent of a full, physical PC to play with, including
an S3 Trio video card. So, the full range of DOS Video modes are
available. Many DOS apps which cannot run in a NTVDM will run on DOS,
running in a Virtual PC. With VPC's "DOS VM Additions" drivers
installed, performance is pretty fast (and any modern machine run DOS
super fast anyway .

Virtual PC was designed (in part) to solve exactly this sort of
compatibility problem. The software is free, so it's probably worth
testing to see if this solves it.

VMWare is also an excellent virtual PC solution; however it costs in teh
order of $100 per workstation.

Hope it helps,
Andrew

--
Rod C--
http://www.en-consult.ca
http://www.ciay.cathe wrong side. -- Channing Pollock <<
The preceding humor inserted by QuipSig
http://www.en-consult.ca/quipsig/

 

[Andrew McLaren]

Not being able to run the DOS window full screen is a big issue for one of
my retail clients. They use a DOS POS program and a part-screen So, my
question is this, is there any hope of Microsoft adding full-screen DOS
support to Vista?

Hi Rod,

The short answer: I don't know. I haven't heard of any such plans; but then
I'm certainly not on any inner-circle discussions on this matter.

Microsoft don't appear to actively monitor his newsgroup, so to make
Microsoft aware of the matter, send feedback via:
http://feedback.windowsvista.micros...tp://support.microsoft.com/gp/cp_vista_master
That way, at least they get to hear your experience (which I sympathise
with, btw).

My unsubstantiated speculation is that it is very unlikely full-screen
support will be added, anytime soon.The question came up several times
during the Vista beta. There was some deep technical reason, why it wasn't
feasible for WDDM drivers to support the full range of VGA Int10 modes. It
wasn't merely a "it's loo much work, lets drop it" kind of decision.

Besides (not to defend their decision, but ...) it was probably expected
that POS systems would generally be lower-end hardware; and running Windows
Embedded or some similar cut down version, rather than the full Vista
desktop:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/embedded/eval/wepos/default.mspx

The restriction on full-screen DOS apps is a function of the WDDM driver
model; it isn't intrinsic to Vista itself. To put that another way: if you
run Vista *without* a WDDM display driver, there should be no problem
running DOS apps, full screen. WDDM is the new driver model introduced
alongside Vista to support Aero, 3D, multimon etc. The "old" graphics driver
model - as used in 200, XP and Server 2003 - continues to work in Vista.
Microsoft have labelled this pre-WDDM driver model "XPDM" (XP Driver Model)
in retrospect.

So, two short-term workaounds might be:

- locate and deploy a non-WDDM, XPDM Vista display driver for your hardware.
Intel, for example, was late in getting WDDM drivers to market so had a
bunch of XPDM drivers (basically rebadged XP drivers) for Vista when it
first came out. Other graphics vendors may have similar non-WDDM drivers
available.

- try running with XP video drivers. This is unfortunetaly getting into
unsupported territory. But, you can certainly run Vista with an XP video
driver.

Basically, if you can get away from WDDM video drivers, then Vista itself
has no problem running full-screen DOS applications.

Hope it helps,

 

[Joseph Millman]

Hi Rod,

The short answer: I don't know. I haven't heard of any such plans; but
then I'm certainly not on any inner-circle discussions on this matter.

<snip type="text/plain" />

There is an option, although a bit fiddly.

You can run a Virtual PC machine at full screen, and if it's a DOS VM it
will run DOS in full screen.
Unfortunatly, this means that from a maintinance side you're going to be
supporting two OS on the same system: one Vista, one DOS.
Fortunatly, the Virtual Machine is also extreamly portable so it should be
able to be migrated along systems without causing much of a problem to the
VM's guest os.

 

[Andrew McLaren]

There is an option, although a bit fiddly.
You can run a Virtual PC machine at full screen, and if it's a DOS VM it
will run DOS in full screen.

Yes, Joseph is correct (and, thanks Joseph!).

Virtual PC is a possible solution.

I kind of glossed over that because, as he rightly notes, it's a bit fiddly
(esp if you are maintaining ~800 POS stations, spread across the whole of
Canada from Nova Scotia to Yellow Knife . But Virtual PC is intended to
solve exactly this kind of compatibilty issue.

Check out the VPC command line parameters to autostart a VHD, and put a
shortcut in the user's Startup folder, to make sure Virtual PC starts up and
goes full screen, when the user logs in (since these are unskilled
operators).

Virtual PC is a free download from microsoft.com:

Virtual PC 2007
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

On balance I suspect finding a non-WDDM driver might be an simpler and
easier solution to manage; but you can evaluate the various approaches and
decide what's best.

 

[Malke]

Yes, Joseph is correct (and, thanks Joseph!).

Virtual PC is a possible solution.

I kind of glossed over that because, as he rightly notes, it's a bit fiddly
(esp if you are maintaining ~800 POS stations, spread across the whole of
Canada from Nova Scotia to Yellow Knife . But Virtual PC is intended to
solve exactly this kind of compatibilty issue.

Check out the VPC command line parameters to autostart a VHD, and put a
shortcut in the user's Startup folder, to make sure Virtual PC starts up and
goes full screen, when the user logs in (since these are unskilled
operators).

Virtual PC is a free download from microsoft.com:

Virtual PC 2007
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

On balance I suspect finding a non-WDDM driver might be an simpler and
easier solution to manage; but you can evaluate the various approaches and
decide what's best.

An alternative to Virtual PC is VMWare with the ACE Option Pack. I have
not used the ACE part yet but it is supposed to make management of VMs
easy and might fit the OP's bill perfectly. I don't know if Virtual PC
has the same sort of thing.


Malke