[Freedos-user] Running FreeDOS on a HP Model nx7400 Vista Business.
I sell an expensive DOS based engineering program that runs great full screen on Windows XP, 2000, Me and 98. The mouse works very well in my menu system. I use the NET USE command in the batch file to launch the program for setting up printing on networks, USB and wireless printers. A desktop shortcut icon runs the batch file. However, it will not run full screen on my new HP Model nx7400 Vista Business laptop. HP lists this model as FreeDOS compatible, but I haven’t installed it yet pending some suggestions. I would greatly appreciate some general guidelines to reduce the stumbling, learning curve. I am not a programmer, so I will NOT be able to customize FreeDOS. My customers are generally dumber than I am and are fairly resistant to running my DOS program now. So, having ANY changes to their Vista operating system is clearly unacceptable. Having a bunch of special drivers would also be a major customer complaint. Installation must be very easy. I now use the Setup Specialist program for my customers to install the software and one special driver to see the Aladdin hardlock key (security dongle). It is very easy for novice to use. Making a new partition for FreeDOS and for my program would be strongly resisted by my customers who may also run the risk of wiping out the Vista OS. I have heard of DosBox, but I understand it is not free. I could purchase multiple copies for distribution with my software. The cost is no problem, but I prefer to make things simple, if possible. I haven’t tried it yet. A Vista reboot to FreeDOS would also meet with a lot of resistance from my customers. Hopefully, I could set up FreeDOS to make the Vista run my DOS program like a XP to maintain all of the Vista security features. My customers will be more accepting now since FreeDOS is being made available from the factory on computer sold by HP and Dell. However, I don’t see that these computer have both Vista and FreeDOS installed at the factory. Do they? This is a link to my demo download page for anyone wishing to test my DOS program on their systems. _http://probelt.com/download.htm_ (http://probelt.com/download.htm) A few major step by step guidelines would be greatly appreciated. Kent ** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Running FreeDOS on a HP Model nx7400 Vista Business.
Hi Kent, (please switch off HTML mail and use plain text on the list) as far as I remember, Microsoft is making the virtual graphics card in DOS boxes worse in newer Windows versions: Win98 maybe did VESA 2.0 with framebuffer, WinXP maybe did VGA, Vista only does plain text mode, something like that? Which mode do you need for your software? Which other things do you need? You said you print via NET USE on network and USB printers: I think USB printers can be BIOS supported, so they behave like parallel port printers for DOS. The MSCLIENT allows you to use MS Network Shares and printers from DOS, but it takes a lot of RAM. The MSCLIENT is freeware. Compatibility is, as far as I know, limited to older protocols. No Active Directory or anything ;-). There is also a DOS novell netware client. HP lists this model as FreeDOS compatible, but I haven???t installed it yet pending some suggestions. Either Dell or HP sometimes ships PCs with FreeDOS included, but unfortunately, they include very old versions. If you have one of those, you should get a fresh copy of FreeDOS first. You get it for diskette (Balder) and cdrom (fdbasecd and fdfullcd, but do not install everything of full...). having ANY changes to their Vista (...) is clearly unacceptable. Then you have a major misunderstanding here: FreeDOS is an operating system. It is not anything that you run inside your Vista to make Vista better. Either you boot into plain DOS - then you will need to make your Vista partition smaller, which is easy with a bootable Linux cdrom - or you will have to run FreeDOS in any type of virtual PC inside your Vista PC. The latter will probably waste lots of CPU time because it has to simulate CPU and / or graphics card. Having a bunch of special drivers would also be a major customer complaint. Installation must be very easy. I guess the easiest way to get a DOS program to run in Vista will be to install a virtual PC on Vista and install DOS in it... For example Bochs and Qemu are free. There are also VMWare and VirtualBox. Whether and how you can get them to exchange files with Vista or print to Vista printers varies a lot between those various virtual computers. special driver to see the Aladdin hardlock key (security dongle). I know no type of virtual PC that would support that, so if your dongle connects to anything DOS compatible (like a parallel port or serial port) then you might consider using real DOS, dual boot. Making a new partition for FreeDOS and for my program would be strongly resisted by my customers who may also run the risk of wiping out the Vista OS. As said, the risk is very limited with modern Linux tools. They have to do it all the time (each time when you install Linux on a PC which already has Windows but want to keep Windows, too). I have heard of DosBox, but I understand it is not free. It is perfectly free, but it is made for games. Not only hardware like soundblaster and graphics card is simulated, also the CPU is simulated (slow, but some old games actually prefer slow) and even the whole DOS and BIOS are simulated. There is no dongle support as far as I know. Simulating DOS and BIOS means that compatibility can be limited (as said, it is meant for games) but on the other hand, it makes it easy to share directories between Windows and DOS. Some, mostly non-free, virtual PC things do not fully simulate the CPU. Instead, they use very lowlevel drivers which allow you to share the real CPU between the real and the inside virtual PC operating system. In particular on modern CPUs. The cost is no problem... As a good deal of the cost of a PC is for Microsoft, you could give your users a dedicated DOS PC for only a few 100 bucks. This will also run fast as heck then :-). A Vista reboot to FreeDOS would also meet with a lot of resistance See above. Hopefully, I could set up FreeDOS to make the Vista run my DOS program like a XP to maintain all of the Vista security features. No way, no NT family Windows ever runs a real DOS. They only give you something which looks like DOS for your apps. And as you move towards more modern Windows, the something gets very simple and limited. You cannot install a real DOS inside the something to fix. My customers will be more accepting now since FreeDOS is being made available from the factory on computer sold by HP and Dell. However, I don???t see that these computer have both Vista and FreeDOS installed at the factory. Do they? No they do not. They just give you a CDROM with FreeDOS, and it can easily happen that this will be a very old CDROM, too. The idea is that Microsoft would sue them if they sold computers without any operating system included, as that makes people install stolen Windows. If they were to install DOS or Linux at the factory, their customers would ask helpdesk questions about DOS or Linux. Now they only ask questions about Windows. To be more exact: You CAN get computers with Linux installed at the
Re: [Freedos-user] Running FreeDOS on a HP Model nx7400 Vista Business.
If I understand you correctly, you prefer to leave the laptop installed with Windows Vista, and boot FreeDOS just to run the engineering program. Sounds like a virtual machine would be the solution here. You should be able to boot a copy of FreeDOS using Microsoft Virtual PC, and run your program from there. The steps to install FreeDOS in a virtual machine will be the same as installing FreeDOS on a standalone PC. Check the install HOWTO: http://fd-doc.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php?n=FdDocEn.FdInstall -jh On 7/5/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I sell an expensive DOS based engineering program that runs great full screen on Windows XP, 2000, Me and 98. The mouse works very well in my menu system. I use the NET USE command in the batch file to launch the program for setting up printing on networks, USB and wireless printers. A desktop shortcut icon runs the batch file. However, it will not run full screen on my new HP Model nx7400 Vista Business laptop. HP lists this model as FreeDOS compatible, but I haven't installed it yet pending some suggestions. I would greatly appreciate some general guidelines to reduce the stumbling, learning curve. I am not a programmer, so I will NOT be able to customize FreeDOS. My customers are generally dumber than I am and are fairly resistant to running my DOS program now. So, having ANY changes to their Vista operating system is clearly unacceptable. Having a bunch of special drivers would also be a major customer complaint. Installation must be very easy. I now use the Setup Specialist program for my customers to install the software and one special driver to see the Aladdin hardlock key (security dongle). It is very easy for novice to use. Making a new partition for FreeDOS and for my program would be strongly resisted by my customers who may also run the risk of wiping out the Vista OS. I have heard of DosBox, but I understand it is not free. I could purchase multiple copies for distribution with my software. The cost is no problem, but I prefer to make things simple, if possible. I haven't tried it yet. A Vista reboot to FreeDOS would also meet with a lot of resistance from my customers. Hopefully, I could set up FreeDOS to make the Vista run my DOS program like a XP to maintain all of the Vista security features. My customers will be more accepting now since FreeDOS is being made available from the factory on computer sold by HP and Dell. However, I don't see that these computer have both Vista and FreeDOS installed at the factory. Do they? This is a link to my demo download page for anyone wishing to test my DOS program on their systems. http://probelt.com/download.htm A few major step by step guidelines would be greatly appreciated. Kent - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Running FreeDOS on a HP Model nx7400 Vista Business.
I have heard of DosBox, but I understand it is not free. I could purchase multiple copies for distribution with my software. The cost is no problem, but I prefer to make things simple, if possible. I haven’t tried it yet. If you mean the DosBox of http://dosbox.sf.net/, it is free under the GPL version 2. Just remember that if you do use it, you have to distribute the source as per the license terms. -- Jack - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Running FreeDOS on a HP Model nx7400 Vista Business.
Hi, [EMAIL PROTECTED] escreveu: I sell an expensive DOS based engineering program I also sell (rent) programs that run in DOS :) :) moving to FreeDOS... You should first try VMware. It has everything that you need, even the dongle should work. The only problem that I foresee is screen speed. It has even another advantage: zero install/setup. As it runs in a Virtual machine, you send a full image and VMware just runs it :) Send feedback, Alain - This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
