I have just purchased a Dell Inspiron 8000 and am having a problem making a DOS program work properly in Windows 2000. The problem is that some of the text characters in the program cannot be recognised. The DOS software manufacturer has informed me that the program works correctly under Windows 98 if the following changes are made to the CONFIG.SYS and the AUTOEXEC.BAT files: Edit CONFIG.SYS in Windows 98 by adding the following line DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\DISPLAY.SYS CON=(EGA,437,1) If COUNTRY=044,,... line exists change this to COUNTRY=044,437,.... Edit AUTOEXEC.BAT in Windows 98 by adding the three following lines PATH=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND MODE CODE CP PREP=((437)C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\EGA.CPI) MODE CON CP SELECT=437 If KEYB UK,,.... line exists change this to KEYB UK,437,.... In Windows 98, therefore, the solution appears to be to force the code page to be 437. In Windows 2000, the files DISPLAY.SYS and EGA.CPI are not available. I have tried changing the locale and keyboard in Regional Settings to USA. I have also tried booting the computer in Safe Mode so that the display is VGA. I am still getting hieroglyphics on the screen, however. Can you suggest a solution so that the code page = 437 when I run this DOS program under Windows 2000, please?

It's simply not possible with Windows 2000. The DOS emulator is extremely fussy about direct hardware calls. Any command that calls directly to a device, in this case the video BIOS, will fail.

Here is a Windows NT trick that may or may not help. Try executing your program as follows. Let's say the name of the executable for your DOS program is dosprog.exe. Instead of calling it as "dosprog" at the command prompt, call it as "forcedos dosprog.exe". I am unsure if forcedos exists in 2000 as I don't use 2000 myself yet. Forcedos has gotten me around times when DOS programs were terminated by the HAL due to direct hardware calls on NT, however.

Dooms... Great tip! I have Win2K and forcedos is there! Thanks! I plan to try it out soon! -Michael