Re: XY in DosBox (XP)

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from Michael Norman  on Sat, 27 Mar
2004 12:11:51 -0500

>> And you're not launching the PIF _directly_ anymore, right?)

> Hm. Here's where I might be in the mire.

Actually, I don't think so. You did some good debugging to determine that U2
frame GetXyOS was causing the problem. I took it from there, and further
ascertained that the specific problem is in this command
 dos/nv/x/z /c cmd.exe /c ver>{d:\path\}$VER$.TMP
which is issued by GetXyOS. That, BTW, is a completely normal and harmless
command. So it's something in XP's handling of running CMD.EXE as a child of
COMMAND.COM that causes the extra cursor to appear. It is a *very minor*
issue. The fix, as noted previously, is simply to issue (in STARTUP.INT)
something like
 BX dos/nv/x/z /c exitQ2 ;*;
after you do the call to GetXyOS. Or to avoid the whole problem altogether by
manually telling XyWrite what OpSys you're using, thus:
 ;*;
We do need to know which operating system you are running, and GetXyOS is
normally the source of that info. I'll continue to look into this, to see if I
can determine why this happens. (I wish you didn't have to reboot every time
you want to try something new!)

*Much* more important is why you get garbage when you shell to DOS. That,
Michael, is major major. We need to fix that ASAP. Try RENaming STARTUP.INT
to STARTUP.HLD again, then launch Xy without an INiTialization file, command
DOS/NV, and see what happens. If it works then, but with INT it doesn't work,
you gotta start all over and debug INT to see what is blocking your capability
to shell to DOS... But do the REG changes I mentioned first...

As for the PIF:

> cmd. line:
> should read C:\XY\Editor.exe with nothing else

Correct! The only variant would be:
 CMD.EXE /C C:\XY4\Editor.exe
which is what I use -- a little more complicated, actually, on this machine I
have
 %windir%\System32\cmd.exe /c D:\XY4\EDITOR.EXE /e2000
I will try it without the CMD.EXE to see if that makes any difference to the
extra cursor issue; but I doubt that it will.

You confuse the issue when you write something like "Here's
what I know: A) create a shortcut (pif) from editor.exe." You
don't "create" a PIF "from" Editor! "For" Editor, maybe; but
"from"
(which I take to mean "with", i.e. writing the PIF file with Editor),
never! When you talk about "the settings in the boxes", I haven't a clue
what you're referring to.

Look: You use the RMB (RightMouseButton) to create a PIF or LNK on the Desktop.
Shortcut ==> New. If, when creating a *new* Desktop icon, you call a file
which is an old DOS file like XyWrite, COMMAND.COM is used to launch it. If
you call a Windows file (a Win16 or Win32 file), CMD.EXE is used to launch it.
HOWEVER! If you *change* an *existing* PIF so that CMD.EXE is used to start a
DOS program, then it remains a PIF. This is called Cheating! It's a really
simple concept. The reason you might do that is to retain the PIF-type
controls or Properties, which are quite different than the LNK Properties.
Anyway, let's not get mired in this nonsense. The thing I was telling you NOT
to do was to launch a PIF file "directly" from the Cmd: line in an icon's
Properties, i.e. I don't want the Cmd: line to read "C:\Documents and
Settings\Michael Norman\Start Menu\Programs\XyWrite.PIF". Got it? Good.

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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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