GW Basic in Windows XP pro

I have just upgraded from 98SE to XP. For many years I have run an old GW Basic program which was written for my business without any problems. On Xp it still runs but does not display correctly. It is OK horizantally but squashed up vertically. Also flashing numbers do not work. From my GW Basic program I can open another DOS spreadsheet called Supercalc. This program works fine when opened from GW Basic or from it's own pif file. The imnteresting think is that when exiting Supercalc to return to the GW Basic program, the GW Basic program then works perfectly. I have tried every possible combination of settings. It did not need any special settings in the Autoexec.bat or Config.sys in 98SE. I have checked Autoexec.nt and Config.nt and they look OK.
Has anyone any ideas. If not it looks like a dual boot system and run it on 98SE.

Dennis

 

Have you tried the Backwards Compatability Wizard?

Johanna

 

Try this ... It seems to work on Win2K for old Dos stuff:

Create a batch file (i.e.-> myapp.bat) with 'Notepad' to set the consol mode and to launch your app with the following commands:

mode con: cols=80 lines=26
C:\<full Path Name>\<Application executable filename>

Then create a pif file (shortcut file). On the "program" tab in the 'cmd line' box, enter the full path to the batch file location you just created above. In the 'Working:' box enter the full path to the actual folder of your application executable. In the "Run" box select "normal window ". Check the box "close on exit ". On the "Screen" tab, select "Window" in the "usage" frame and check all the check boxes.

Start the whole business up by launching the new pif file (shortcut) you just created.

When it starts up, press the <alt><enter> keys to toggle the screen size.

It seems long and arduous but the trouble is worth it if you still run the old stuff!

Good Luck
Top Dog

 

Thanks Joanna and Top Dog. I have tried most things already withour success.
I already run my GW Basic program from a batch file. I find that with a batch file the pif manager is not as you described. The one with the screen section only appears when the application is an exe program.
However I tried your suggestion but the result is the same. The annoying thing is that I am sure that this happened before many years ago, but I cannot remember the cause. I thought it might need ansi.sys but that did not help. I also notice that when I run the GW Basic program the CPU load is 100%. There must be a reason why the program runs OK when returning from Supercalc. Running supercalc would appear to sort out XP!

Dennis