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Fred, I'm stumped! Have been running Win-98 on my old computer and also some DOS programs I've been using for a dozen years. (With a dozen years of data which would be a pain to attempt conversion to any WIN program, if I could find one which was compatible.)

Just bought a new SONY RZ22G Vaio computer with XP Home on it. When I attempt to run these DOS programs in XP's DOS window, they are very small and difficult to use. The window will not enlarge to fill the screen, but is like a minimized screen.

I thought I had a solution: Make a DOS Boot floppy and run these programs under pure DOS from it. Accordingly, I formatted a floppy and transferred the sys files using WIN-98's DOS. I then copied Himem.sys, EMM386.EXE, and a Device driver for CD ROM to the floppy and it now reads as follows

device = himem.sys
device = emm386.exe NOEMS
DOS=HIGH, UMB
devicehigh = vide-cdd.sys /DIBMCD001
files=40
buffers=40

Problem: Computer boots, and all appears normal until I attempt to change directories, at which time I get a message "Invalid drive specification."

What am I forgetting? Anything you can suggest would be very much appreciated. ---Harley Witham

Your way can work, Harley, and we'll get back to it in a moment, but there's usually a much easier solution. You see, XP can usually handle old software (including DOS apps) pretty well on its own, with three caveats:

First, as you've seen, many old DOS apps (and games) were meant to run at either 25 lines by 80 characters (if text) or maybe 640x480 resolution (if graphics), and sometimes much less for very early software. You probably now run your system at a much higher resolution, but the old DOS apps haven't a clue how to work in a larger environment. The result can be a tiny window on your much-larger screen.

But XP offers solutions: First, each window in which your DOS apps run can have its own properties: Right click on the window's menu bar, and explore the options for window size, font size and style, and more. Enlarging the font, for example, may make old text-based apps far more usable on today's large screens.

You might also try altering the way the DOS programs actually run: In XP, right click on the DOS program and select Properties/Compatibility/Run in 640x480. XP will then try to run the app or game in low resolution, restoring the classic look and feel.

Note that the "compatibility" property offers other options, too, to fool older apps into thinking they're running on the hardware or OS for which they were designed. This is one of XP's nicer features--- it's far more flexible in handling older software than Windows 2000, for example, even though XP is based on Win2K.

For more info, go to the XP help system, and search on "compatibility."

But there's some old software that XP won't handle: Some really, really ancient software tries to control the PC hardware directly, bypassing the OS. This is a trick used when machines ran at very slow speeds--- speeds about 1/500th as fast as today's. It's not only unnecessary now, but actually causes trouble: If an app takes over the hardware and then crashes, it will take down everything else with it--- including the OS. This is actually one of the reasons why the early versions of Windows got their reputation for being crash-prone--- a rogue app or game might have a problem, but in doing so, would also undermine the OS causing it to crash and thus taking out any other apps that happened to be running at the same time: Only one program would have to fail for the whole house of cards to come down. This is a problem that plagued all versions of Windows in the 3.1 and 9.x families, including ME.

NT, Win2K, and XP get their reputation for being crash-resistant because they don't allow other programs to take over key systems in the PC. In this way, the essential services of the OS are protected from bad apps: An app itself still may crash and burn, but it will have a very hard time taking out the OS. This also protects other software that may be running at the same time: No one software crash is likely to take out everything, as can (and does) happen in Win9x: Instead, in XP, software problems are usually confined only to the program that's having trouble.

Most software applications--- even old DOS versions--- are "well behaved" (that is, they don't try to "own" the screen, or printer, or hard drive, or other hardware) and can work fine in XP. But some very old applications and games are badly behaved (designed to take over all or some of the PC): XP won't allow that software to run because it's too dangerous.

For that kind of software to work, Harley's boot disk idea is a good one. But you'll also have to put the old DOS software itself on floppies or on a non-NTFS partition of your hard drive, because on its own, DOS cannot access NTFS drives. (See http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=10700681 for more info, including how to add NTFS drivers to your DOS floppies.)

Fortunately, with most DOS/Win3/Win95/Win98 application software, the "compatibility" system in XP will be all you need.

(BTW: The above also explains why XP uses different drivers and low-level utilities from Win9x. Older Win9x drivers and utilities may try to communicate directly with the hardware, which--- just like old DOS software--- can cause trouble if the driver or utility hangs or crashes. XP-style drivers and utilities tell the OS what they want done, and the OS then does it. This makes it much harder for a bad driver or utility to take out the PC--- but it does mean that old Win9x drivers and low-level utility software won't work in XP.)

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Dear Fred, You have a great newsletter. You have pointed me to innumerable resources and solved many computer "issues" for me. Thanks!!

Re "...you can just pop in a Linux setup CD and automatically have a working, fully-configured system ready to run a few minutes later... I recently had a true 'Wow' experience with Knoppix http://www.knoppix.net/ ..." [ http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-04-14.htm#2 ]

I have been using Red Hat since version 5.0 because it has the best support via mailing lists. However, this Knoppix distribution is a GREAT experience!

From reading the Red Hat list for many years I recommend that every Linux system should include these caveats:

1. Find out if your video chipset is supported by looking on http://www.xfree86.org . If your video chipset is not supported by the version of X in your Linux distribution forget the installation.

2. Internal modems are "iffy" propositions with Linux. Winmodems do not work. All external modems attached to serial port or USB port work. If you have a Winmodem forget connecting to the Internet with Linux. Caveat Exception: As with all things Linux there are work arounds if you can find them. If you can't find them this mailing list recommendation will occasionally appear: "Use the source!" (Write your own driver. Ha!Ha!)

...I recommend the above 2 and the following for newbies:

1. Use Knoppix on a machine with 128 MB or more of RAM to boot into graphics mode. Otherwise, you will have to create a swap partition - with Linux fdisk, not MS fdisk - which is as slow as cold molasses, to have a graphical interface.

2. Know how to enter the system BIOS menu and change to "boot from CD first."

3. Personal configuration in Knoppix can be saved to floppy and inserted during next boot to save the user much time. See the Knoppix web page.

4. Check out the Linux Documentation Project at http://www.tldp.org . For many things Linux is a do it yourself project. I really like the HOW-TO's.

Thanks again Fred! Sincerely, Bill Salvino

In the June 9th issue ( http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-06-09.htm#4 ), a problem was raised about homepage hijacking and the installation a of a toolbar without the user's permission. I am currently using a free program called "Internet Explorer Restrictions" from Camtech ( http://camtech2000.net/Pages/Restrictions.htm ) that prevents changing of the URL used as your home page, among others.

The first paragraph of the program's help page says:"IE Restrictions will remove most common restrictions that may have been set by a sleaze web site as well as other methods. I do not guarantee this will remove all types available as there are just too many to put in one program but this will take care of 24 of the most common ones. Of course you can also use it to set any restrictions you'd like to have on your PC."

Hope this helps. ---Cesar I. Gulmatico Jr

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Dear Fred, I have been registered with http://www.grc.com for some time now, and was curious as to why I hadn't received news of any updates from the site. I checked Steve's site and found that I'd missed an important update. I e-mailed the support team to see if I was registered to ensure I didn't miss anything else in the future. They referred me to a great site: http://www.changedetection.com .

You can elect to be notified by e-mail if there are any changes on your chosen web page. Also, if you have your own site your visitors can choose to be notified if there are any changes on the site, which can increase traffic.

This service is totally free and you can choose to be e-mailed about other services e.g. affiliate programs. Regards, Brian Abbott (England)

Fred: Thanks for such a great newsletter! I'd like to share a piece of freeware with you and your readers -- it's a string-replacing utility for Windows, called BK ReplaceEm, written by Bill Klein. You can find it at http://www.orbit.org/replace/ .

To quote from the site, "At its core, ReplaceEm is essentially a text search-and-replace program. However, unlike the search-replace functionality of a standard text editor, ReplaceEm is designed to operate on multiple files at once. And you need not only perform one search-replace operation per file -- you can setup a list of operations to perform. If different groups of files need to have different operations performed on  them, this is no problem either. You can also specify a backup file for each file processed just incase the replace operation didn’t do exactly what you wanted."

And, it supports Regular Expressions! And it will recurse through sub-directories! It's really a super program, and I just got a nice, helpful response from Mr. Klein to a problem that turned out to be my own fault (I'd inadvertently changed a setting). If you need to replace strings in a lot of files, this just can't be beat! ---David Rhoten

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Saddam decided to send George W. a letter to let him know he is still in the game. Bush opened the letter and it appeared to contain a coded message

370HSSV-0773H

George W. couldn't figure it out so he shared it with Colin Powell. Powell and his aides had no clue either, so they sent it to the CIA. No one could decode it so it went to the NSA-- and then to MIT, NASA, the Secret Service... the list got longer and longer.

Eventually they asked Mossad in Israel for help. Cpt. Moishe Pippick took one look at it and replied: "Tell the President he is looking at the message upside down..."

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