Re: Full-screen DOS Prompt on Vista (was I want to go geek .. and VPC?)

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from "Patricia M. Godfrey"
 on Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:22:43 -0400


> What I meant was that when the graphic image of the VDM
> screen and the graphic image of the whole screen coincided.

OK. I'm obliged to ask a really dumb question: You're
absolutely sure you were looking at *true* FullScreen VGA, and
not just a Window that was cleverly resized to fill the whole
screen?  Because what you're describing here is precisely the
latter -- except for the Alt-Enter part! And because some
FullScreen emulations can be really convincing -- it is possible
to hide the Title bar of a Window, and the borders can also be
hidden in the Registry or by simply enlarging the window beyond
the boundaries of the physical screen. And finally because what
you're saying is truly strange: why should resizing the DOS
Window make any difference at all to the ability of the
operating system to talk to the video card and set an SVGA mode?

Let me try to clarify what you're saying -- please correct me
where wrong. The salesman opened a DOS Prompt, right-clicked
Properties in the TitleBar, went to the Layout tab, and there
you see an image of your DOS Prompt window situated (and
positioned) within a larger black box intended to represent your
whole screen. To enlarge the representation of the DOS Prompt
window, he increased the "Window Size" until it filled the
larger black box.

N.B.: Increasing the "Buffer Size" does nothing to alter either
of these representations, except to introduce sliders -- so I'm
thinking Buffer Size has nothing to do with this (?). The only
adjustment here, I imagine, is when you reach a full Window
Size, you would probably want to set Buffer Size to the same
values...

He would have to *uncheck* "Let system position window" and set
the Left,Top coordinates to 0,0 -- if he didn't do that,
increasing the Window Size beyond the dimensions of the visible
screen would push the DOS Prompt window into invisible areas of
the Desktop (the Desktop, as I'm sure you know, is much larger
[roughly 4x] than the visible screen). In fact, you can push
both these numbers down to negative 4 -- I wonder if he did that?

The numbers in the Window Size box refer to columns ("Width")
and lines ("Height"). Therefore, these numbers are mightily
affected by the font size you have selected. What font size did
he use? Does it matter? Did he use Lucida Console TrueType, or
a raster font? Does it matter?

As you increase Window Size, there is enough sensitivity in the
graphical representation that every increment of one column or
line is reflected onscreen, and you can see when the window
stops enlarging -- indeed, if you go one stop beyond the
maximum, a slider suddenly appears on the side of or underneath
the window -- so you can exactly know when you reach max size,
or thereabouts. Is that what he wanted to do: reach exactly
these boundaries, but go no further?

Once you know what the proper size is, you can jettison this
rigmarole and automate the whole thing with MODE CON: COLS=183
LINES=81 (or whatever the values should be).

Unfortunately, when you switch into FullScreen (Alt-Enter), you
then have a LOT of columns and lines displayed. If you do MODE
CON, it reports that the screen is set for something like 183
columns and 81 lines -- wildly high numbers. No normal console
font can display such high values, so it falls back to the
largest available console font, which is probably about 132x50.

But suppose you prefer 80x25 (or in any case something
different)? What to do? You can automate that with MODE CON:
COLS=80 LINES=25. In fact, I would simply automate the whole
thing, including the Alt-Enter toggle, using GoXy.exe to poke
the (normally unscriptable Alt-Enter) keystrokes, with
parameters like this:

start /min GoXy.exe "DOS Window Title (whatever it is!)" /MODE
CON: COLS=183 LINES=81key(ETWT{1500}ALETWT{1500})MODE CON:
COLS=80 LINES=25key(ET)

But here's what I'm wondering: If you set your Shortcut for
these very high column/line numbers, can you simply set the
Shortcut to open FullScreen -- does that just work?

Anyway, these are some specific questions to ask and things to
look for when you return to the store -- I believe you said
you'd be going right after breakfast? Or... is anyone else here
using Vista? I have no access to my machine until October...
and anyway, my machine just displays FullScreen without any
tricks.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
-----------------------------