I have several old DOS games that I still like to play. If I create a shortcut to run them from in Windows, the following message pops up: "This program is set to run in MS-DOS mode and cannot run while other programs are running. All other programs will close if you choose to continue. Do you want to continue?" If I choose yes, then Windows shuts down and the computer restarts to play the DOS game. This is annoying. If I just run the MS-DOS prompt in Windows and run the game from the "embedded" DOS window, everything's fine. However, it takes longer, and being a product of the 70s, I'm a very impatient person 8-). Is there some way to create a small program that will start a DOS window, change to my game directory, and run my game? (In other words, can I program DOS to do what I have thusfar done manually?) I've never programmed in DOS before, and I wouldn't know where to begin... Thanks, A

Take a look at Access, a freeware DOS menu program. I prefer v3.01.

Dear Amber, If you have shortcut icons for these games on the desktop, right-click on each one and select "Properties." You should be able to change the PIF (Program Information File) settings Windows uses for DOS programs so that the program will start in a particular folder and so that it will run while Windows is active. The fact that you can run them in a DOS window indicates that this is possible. If you run the programs from the "Start" menu, choose "Start|Settings|Taskbar and Start Menu|Advanced" and do the same thing. You'll probably find that you don't need to do any "programming" at all. ;-) Best wishes, David P.