On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, chris wrote:
> I have an old legacy DOS application
WHAT "application"? It really DOES matter.
"old"? "legacy"?
> that I need to run on new Win XP
> hardware for the next few months. The problem is, I've been told it won't
> run under XP's DOS Shell.
WHO told you? the author of the program?? Uncle Charlie??
Have YOU tried it?
Sorry to seem harsh, but "been told it won't run" is
quite a bit different from "it won't run".
WHAT program is it? It really DOES matter.
The DOS box in NT (which XP is one of) is just fine
for running "old legacy DOS application"s (PROGRAMS).
BUT,...
NT will NOT permit certain kinds of hardware access,
such as writing disk sectors, "for security reasons".
Therefore, XenoCopy can not run in any version of NT
(NT3,NT4,Win2K,XP).
> I'm curious what others have used as solutions to run non NT kernel
> friendly DOS applications in such an environment. I'm thinking about
> something like Virtual PC to run a regular DOS 6.2.2 install inside it,
> but I have no idea if that will actually work. Plus I need to do this on
> up to 5 machines and buying 5 copies of VPC at the new Microsoft pricing
> may break the bank (Connectix used to have an OS free version for
> something like $50... MS now charges $130 for the base price).
If the reason that the "old legacy DOS application" won't
run is because it needs to do something that has been
blocked "for security reasons" (such as writing disk sectors),
then it won't run any better with VPC.
> It looks like VMWare is going to be the same problem with pricing.
> So does anyone have any other recommended solutions? I'd like this to be
> as transparent to the users as possible (they currently run the software
> in a DOS session under Win95, so the closest I can come to that
> functionality, the better).
So, it DOES run in a Windoze DOS box. There are few things that
will run in a Win95 DOS box that won't run in an XP DOS box,
other than "security risks"
What kind of partition does the system have?
Does the "old legacy DOS application" need access to the hard disk?
(ones that REALLY are "old" would not)
1) Boot from floppy with DOS 6.2x. If it DOES need the hard disk,
then make a small FAT16 partition for it to use.
or
2) install a dual boot of XP and Win98, and make the drive,
or a partition of it, FAT32.
--
Grumpy Ol' [legacy?] Fred
Received on Tue Jun 08 2004 - 14:21:15 BST