Re: DOS applications ?

From: Joseph M. Newcomer (newcomer_at_flounder.com)
Date: 05/24/04 

Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 21:57:04 -0400

The last I looked at MS-DOS, version 6.x, you could not "open a second command prompt
window". Because this was a concept completely unsupported by the operating system.
Versions of MS-DOS that ran Win9x, however, supported multiple NTVDMs in multiple windows,
as well as having the asynchronous run option. But this only works when you use
32-bit-Windows-on-MS-DOS. That's why I was trying to undestand what the question is, since
there seems to be serious confusion about what is MS-DOS, what is a 32-bit command window,
and running a 16-bit app on a 32-bit environment. These are all different issues than
running on MS-DOS.

If you run a 16-bit app on any 32-bit OS, the rules are different than running a 16-bit
app on a 16-bit MS-DOS system.

Yes, I forgot that command was not actually a .exe, but a .com. .com rules were different
from .exe rules. For example, .com files could only work with small-model code, if I
recall one of the limitations correctly.

/c does not keep the window open. In fact, this is one of the exercises I give my
students, to run a process
        cmd /c "dir *.*"
/c simply says to run the command which follows. The command shell terminates after the
command is executed. They depend on this behavior for their exercise.

Mouse drivers in Win16 were loaded as Terminate And Stay Resident (TSR) programs, so when
they exited, they remained in memory.

As far as I know, there is no way to tie together two console windows.

autoexec.bat was loaded each time the command interpreter was started. This is also true
on NT, but I think it only allows SET and PATH execution.

START only applies to 32-bit systems running on top of MS-DOS. It was not supported in
MS-DOS, or Win16 on MS-DOS.

In Win16, you could not start a Windows program from a commmand shell, and you could not
launch a console app by double-clicking it. This inconsistency was removed in Windows, and
the 32-bit-on-MS-DOS versions adopted this as well.

It appears that command.com on XP simply runs command.exe; at least I can't discover a
difference.
                                        joe

On Sun, 23 May 2004 01:09:21 -0400, "Jim Carlock" <anonymous@127.0.0.1> wrote:

>A DOS batch file runs dos programs sequentially and can run
>programs asynchronously as well. You can start up a second
>command prompt window and keep the second command
>prompt active... I've not done it since Windows 98 but there
>is a /c switch that can be used with command prompts to keep
>the window open... I don't know how to tie the two open
>command prompts together, but I'm sure there's a way to use
>Windows APIs to do it.
>
>You mentioned command.exe. It was really command.com.
>
>The boot process was io.sys, msdos.sys, command.com, then
>Windows.
>
>When Command.com started, that in turn called and ran the
>programs within config.sys, autoexec.bat. Sometimes a mouse
>driver would be contained within the autoexec.bat and once
>the mouse driver was loaded, it stayed running, thus, you had
>a program loaded and called from a command prompt and
>physically running while the command prompt continued
>processing the calling of autoexec.bat.
>
>The only thing I'm not sure about, is whether it was msdos.sys
>that loaded config.sys and autoexec.bat or if it was the initial
>loading of command.com.
>
>The START command (which I think is a command.com or
>cmd.exe internal command) is used to start up separate command
>prompts. This can be demonstrated by the following batch file:
>
>START "Window 1" cmd.exe
>START "Window 2" cmd.exe
>
>In the earlier versions of Windows there was a way to start up
>separate command prompts as well, but I just don't recall if it
>was done in the same fashion.

Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
email: newcomer@flounder.com
Web: http://www.flounder.com
MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm

Relevant Pages

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