Slow dos execution

I was running an Insurance program in "dos" with the operating system being Windows 98.
Today I installed Windows XP and it slowed the program a little bit. The slowness is noticeable, but not to any extreme.
It is my understanding that this can happen because Windows XP (as far as "dos" is concerned) could care less.
Is this correct?
If this is true, is there any way to speed up the program while in "dos" mode? Any help will be appreciated.

 

Maybe more memory !

How much do you have ?

 

jmatt, I am running 512 MB with Windows XP. This should be enough. Thank you for your reply.

 

Bill - it certainly should be possible to get the program back up to at least the speed you saw on 98 and maybe faster.

A couple of quick things to try
- open a DOS window using start~run~cmd (so you are sure you have a 32bit version running that XP is better able to use) and then launch your app. It may already run in this mode but maybe not.
- set the desktop shortcut to 98 compatibility mode.

Post back with results. There are other tweaks that will help but these two things will suggest which should be most effective.

 

Here are some more possibles .

Defragment the MFT, download Diskeeper Professional trial version
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27613

========================================

http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-02-03.htm
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pagedefrag.shtml
Sysinternals' free PageDefrag > Win2K/XP
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/contig.shtml
Sysinternals' free Contig

Defrag "Tricks "

Hi Fred, Here's a bunch of tricks I'd like to share with your
readers. It's all about one thing: hard disk defragmentation.
If you ask the Win2K/XP's defragmenter run on a hard disk, it
can't defrag things such as registry files in use, or the
virtual memory file (pagefile.sys). So here's the first trick
use Sysinternals' free PageDefrag available at
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pagedefrag.shtml
that does the job, with one cool option it can automatically
do it at every boot. I choose this, with no problem at all.

After Win2K/XP' defragmenter runs (on GUI mode), if you click
on the "display report" button, many times you can see that
for some reasons (mostly available space I think) some non
system files stay - sometimes very - fragmented. Trick #2 here
you can use Sysinternals' free Contig (
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/contig.shtml ).

It's a command-line tool that instantly defrags any file you
want (except the aforementioned).

But if the fragmented files are many, the task can be
daunting. That's where trick #3 comes: choose to save the
report file, and use the attached file (configReport.cmd). It
takes the report file as argument, parses it and does a
"contig" on every file it finds referenced. Feel free to
improve it as you like.

Now, for a quick, everyday way of working, here's the 4th
trick: when you choose to save the report from Win2K/XP's
defragmenter, choose a filename with an unused extension (for
instance VolumeG.txt.dfl or VolumeG.txt.defragreportfile).
Then double-click this file, choose "Select the program in a
list ", then "Browse... ", select contigReport.cmd, click OK.

From now on, whenever you double-click any file like
VolumeG.txt.defragreportfile (or whatever extension you
chose), an automatic defrag will be done on them. ) Enjoy, MLL

=====================================

Enable or disable boot defrag
http://www.rdisruption.com/docs/xp system and performance tweaks.htm
A great new feature in Microsoft Windows XP is the ability to do a boot defragment. This places all boot files next to each other on the disk to allow for faster booting. By default this option in enables but on some builds it is not so below is how to turn it on.

Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to our FAQ on how to get started.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftDfrgBootOptimizeFunction
Select Enable from the list on the right.
Right on it and select Modify.
Change the value to Y to enable and N to disable.
Reboot your computer.

 

Opp's

Defragment the MFT, download Diskeeper Professional trial version
http://www.windows-defrag.com/download_center.htm

 

Newt and jmatt, thank you for your input trying to help speed up dos in Windows XP.
I will let it be known if any of these suggestions work.

 

Also if none of them work. There are more things to try but these are the simplest so a good starting place.