I installed DESQview/X (I don't remember the version, except the newest one available, I'm pretty sure) on my Compaq DeskPro 5120 2000 (Pentium 120 MHz, 48 MB RAM, Cirrus Logic Alpine CL-GD5434/6 with 1 MB video RAM), along with QEMM'97 (9.0 ?), and I get all these random problems with DV/X. I have messed with my configuration and tried QEMM 7.5, QEMM'97, Stealth ROM frame/mapping, off entirely, excluding F000-FFFF, combination of files from QEMM 7.5 and 97 (or 9.0 or hatever you want to call it), and finally tried a configuration with absolutely nothing except for QEMM loaded, without providing EMS, HMA use, or upper memory of any kind - basically providing XMS and nothing else - because DESQview/X requires it to be loaded. Nothing worked, except for one combination of QEMM'97 and QEMM 7.5 files that I was unable to reproduce - and the system also crashed when I would exit DV/X. I would get to the splash logo, and then QEMM would give me a crash message. I documented this and it was always like: -Exception 13 at 1374:FFFF, 047A:FFFF, or basically any address that's in free space as I shuffled drivers and REMed out a lot of lines, and always code 0. -AX=0E0D, BX=FFFF, CX=0003, DX=80D3, SI=4B61, DI=FB19, BP=FFFF, DS=FFFF, ES=10D8, ES=10D8, SS=E4B0, SP=0000, FL=3212 The Exception 13 would always occur in an area of free space. I checked this carefully with Manifest... so I figured there was some problem in DV/X's code - but I think this obviously would have been discovered if the problem was not with my computer. I also tried PC-DOS and the same problem occurred - I did not do nearly as extensive changing of configuration as with DR-DOS because all the same problems were occurring. I got DV/X to work with only _one configuration_ but it was so heavily modified with a grab bag of drivers and options from QEMM 7.5 and 97 that I could not recreate it. Also, whenever I exited DV/X, it would crash. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am fairly sure the problem is with the BIOS of the Compaq - other programs have trouble also, and would run fine on different hardware. Don't try and tell me what I'm doing wrong unless you really think I haven't tried it - and believe me, I eliminated all possibilities of a conflicting device driver or TSR when I booted with nothing but QEMM (required by DV/X). --------------------- My question is this: Has anyone else experienced similar trouble when running Desqview/X on a Compaq similar to mine?

Never played with DESQview but your error description and register contents look just like the typical corrupted stack branch into null or zero filled memory. In addition, the register contents suggest a Disk operation was being attempted, but not enough is there to confirm this. This type of error can be caused by an interrupt that is not correctly handled, or for which the software was not designed to handle. This and your finger pointing at BIOS (which I am sure is valid and tested code) leads me to wonder if you have missed an important configuration setup requirement. While checking for the latest BIOS update your your machine from Compaq (98-6-8), I realized your machine is a plug and play BIOS system. It assigns hardware I/O addresses and Interrupt assignments as needed. DESKview on the other hand is a very old system that assumes specific interrupt assignments, etc. So the question is, have you gone into the Compaq BIOS and told it that you are not using a Plug and Pray OS, that BIOS is to assign all interrupts, DMA, etc. to legacy values, AND that you have disabled interrupts from any devices which DESQview could not handle such as USB, pnp Network cards, AGP video interrupts, etc. It sounds a lot like some operation is causing an interrupt on a level that DESQview can not handle correctly or one that it does not know about.