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I'm finally ready to leave my old ME,
probably for an XP Pro, because from everything I've seen here, it seems
the easiest to use with Xy.
For all its troubles handling MS, my
ME DOS works beautifully with Xywrite (III plus; version 3.56)--in providing a
"true" full screen with readable (and serifed) type; in cutting and pasting
between Windows and Xy, which I do all the time; and in providing a taskbar to
do so in Xy in a windowed screen.
But before buying a new system, I
want to see how to best replicate those qualities in an XP Pro (or in
anything).
On the full-screen problem, I've been
looking here and see no perfect answer. But on copying and pasting, here are a
few questions:
1) No
taskbar:
On my ME, when I hit alt-enter, I get a small screen that reads "EDITOR" at the very top, and under that, a taskbar with the edit icons--"mark," "copy," "paste"--as well as "properties," "fonts," and an icon to return to full screen. But when I've tested Xy (via flashdrive) on an Xp (or on Vista, which is worse), there's no taskbar at all. Instead, this appears at the very top: E:\Xywrite\EDiTOR.EXE. Or, if I click on AUTOEXEC MS-DOS
Batch file, I get this at the top of the small Xy screen:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe.
Either way, no taskbar. I have to
click that very top line, then click a menu that lists "properties" and "edit";
then click on "edit" to get "mark," "copy" or "paste." This is way more
time-consuming than just clicking a copy or paste icon.
Is there a more efficient way to do
this on XP? Or, better, is there any way to get the taskbar on to XP? I could be
wrong, but I think I've read here that anything beyond ME or Win 2000 just can't
do that, that they can't take MS-DOS, which is what allows for the taskbar.
(I've tried putting MS-DOS from ME onto the flashdrive, but when calling it up
on XP, I get this message:
E:\EDITOR.pif. Invalid program file
name, please check your pif file. Choose "Close to terminate the
application.")
2) The things and
arrows of copying/pasting from XY to Windows:
For years, I've been writing on Xywrite and going through this clunky but al- ways reliable process to send a piece in: --insert a 3 1/2" floppy and copy the story from C: to A: --copy the story from A: to the floppy via email (on Outlook Express) by clicking "insert," then "text from file") --send story in on email (same could all be done onto a Word doc). But coming out of my cozy cave, I see
that these new-fangled computers don't do floppies. And so the only way to
copy/paste from Xy to email is to use the mark-copy-paste technique in Xy on
windows. But when I copy to email, long arrows, little boxes, or weird question
marks appear wherever I've used the enter key to end a graf or create an extra
line. Then, in the email or Word doc, I have to manually delete each little
arrow or box, evidence of which I've left in the graf
above.
Is there a better way to do
this?
3) No scrolling while
copying allowed:
Using the mark-copy-paste method for XY to email (and this problem is on ME as well as XP) you can only "mark" a page (22 lines on my system) at a time. In full-screen Xy, you can copy and scroll at the same time (but of course copy/paste only within Xy). Is there anyway to avoid this? 4) Finally,
before I buy a system, which is likely to best solve the above problems? A
straight Xp Pro, Win7 32 bits with an Xp downgrade, virtual PC, and/or
partitions? (I don't quite understand the recent partition thread, so this
question may make no sense: Is there a way to partition ME (from an original
disk I have) into a new computer?
My computer guy (a 14 year old!)
tried some of these combos, and concluded that the advantages of an ME (taskbar,
full Xy screen, the floppy business) can't really be replicated. His experiments
are below. Anything he missed? I see he didn't try Win7 32 bits. Would that make
a difference?
I apologize for such a long post, and
thank you all in advance for your guidance.
Here are results from my computer
guy's experiments. My ME is unable to call up the screenshots he provided
captions for below:
So far, I've tested XyWrite within DOSbox in Windows 7, within Windows
7 64-bit itself, and within virtual machines of Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP under Windows Virtual PC. DOSbox & Windows 7: - Basically the same thing as Vista. No taskbar. - NO fullscreen, it causes problems. Windows 7 64-Bit: - As I thought, it's a no-go. 64 bit versions of Windows do not support 16 bit DOS applications anymore. Windows 98: - The OS itself is unstable and not fun to work with. - Can copy+paste within Virtual Machine, but not to host system (the actual system you're running) - It runs WITH THE TASKBAR, BUT: - Fullscreen is not to your liking (See screenshots) Windows 2000: - OS is rock solid and shares the same interface as ME - NO TASKBAR, but I found a workaround (see screenshots) - Can copy+paste within Virtual Machine, but not to host system (the actual system you're running) - Fullscreen is not to your liking (see screenshots) Windows XP Mode: - Stable, and supported. Allows seamless integration. - NO Fullscreen OR taskbar (taskbar workaround still applies.) - Can Copy+Paste seamlessly between systems. - Can run either in the Virtual Machine or seamlessly with Windows 7 (that's what I meant my seamless integration) (screenshots are in windowed mode for the Virtual Machines) Overall, what you have now is best SPECIFICALLY FOR THIS ONE PROGRAM. While it is not optimal to use this older operating system, the means of running your application within newer environments is not optimal either. The choice is yours. Captions: DOSbox1: Same as Vista basically. 98-1: How it appears on Windows 98 - a bit buggy. 98-2: Fullscreen, but not maximized. If I were to maximize it, it would appear the same way, with blackness surrounding it. Not good. 2000-1: How it appears on Windows 2000. Pretty good. 2000-2: Taskbar workaround for 32-Bit NT-Based versions of Windows (2000, XP, Vista, 7) 2000-3: Copy+Paste WITHIN the virtual machine, but not with host operating system 2000-4: Fullscreen, but not maximized (same as 98-2) XP-1: Selecting and Copying a body of text. XP-2: Pasting into the host operating system xpseamless1: Copy+Paste between XyWrite seamlessly run from XP within Windows 7. |