Windows7 - anyone tested ?

[Matthias Kuhn]

Hello,

has anyone tested Dos-Exe´s onto an Windows7 32bit / 64bit Version from
Microsoft ??

Does it work well ?


Best regards

Matthias Kuhn

P.S.: Now I`m using Windows Vista and it worked - but not every time fine.
Windows XP was much better for DOS-Apps.

[Brice Manuel]

Windows 7 does not support DOS. If you want to run DOS software under Windows 7, you should look into DOSBox . DOSBox works great and it is free.

[Mr. Kevin Diggins]

Windows 7 does not support DOS. If you want to run DOS software under Windows 7, you should look into DOSBox . DOSBox works great and it is free.

WRONG.

You CAN run DOS apps using the 32-bit version of Windows 7, even when running on 64-bit hardware. This is from personal experience.

You cannot run DOS apps in 64-bit version of Windows 7, unless you resort to virtualization or emulation. This is from personal experience.

DOSBOX the emulator, http://www.dosbox.com, works but it's hardly great - though it is certainly easier than setting up a DOS VM.

YMMV

[Brice Manuel]

WRONG.

I am not wrong. There are eleven versions of Windows 7 and none of them support DOS. Trust me on this.

You CAN run DOS apps using the 32-bit version of Windows 7, even when running on 64-bit hardware. This is from personal experience.

You are confusing the command prompt in Windows 7 with DOS, which is a common mistake.

The command prompt under NT versions utilizes NTVDM (NT Virtual DOS Machine). The VM uses a special version of DOS 5. IIRC, the command prompt in NT versions (cmd.exe) is based on OS/2's old command interpreter, as opposed to older DOS-based versions of Windows that used the actual DOS command prompt (command.com).

The command prompt on NT versions is designed to emulate much of the old functionality of DOS. Because of this many text-based DOS programs will run under the command prompt's emulation. However the emulation provided is very limited and the majority of DOS software will not run from the command prompt.

Since Windows 7 does not support DOS, the only reliable way to get DOS software running is using DOSBox (or another emulator) or resorting to installing DOS in a VM. (If you need to install DOS in a VM and can't find your old DOS disks, I highly recommend FreeDOS. FreeDOS is very good and free and I like it so much that I run it on my two old 486 clunkers for my DOS work as it has better performance that MS DOS 6.22 on those systems.)

DOSBOX the emulator, http://www.dosbox.com, works but it's hardly great - though it is certainly easier than setting up a DOS VM.

If you do not like it, do not use it. However, it is one of the most accepted solutions and it has been used by at least one major gaming company who redeployed the old King's Quest games via a CD collection for modern systems a couple of years ago. It worked like a charm, and there is no way the majority of EUs would have been able to set up DOS in a VM to run the games.

[Mr. Kevin Diggins]

A picture is worth 1,000 words - see screen shot.


PowerBasic 2.10a running in a command prompt (cmd.exe) Windows 7 (32-bit)

[Brice Manuel]

A picture is worth 1,000 words - see screen shot.


PowerBasic 2.10a running in a command prompt (cmd.exe) Windows 7 (32-bit)

Yes, it runs under emulation. Like I said, many text based DOS programs can run under the command prompt's emulation. However, emulation does NOT equal support. Emulation is what you resort to when your product does not support something.

Your personal experience (or lack thereof) seems to be the cause of your misunderstanding (which is a common newbie mistake). It has been this way since NT first hit, you might want to catch up a bit

[Mel Bishop]

Brice, your reaction is something I would expect from MM. Somebody shows you it does work and you say it don't. Disappointing.

I have several old(ish) DOS programs that run just fine from a DOS prompt under w7 ultimate 32-bit. Some, OTOH, do require DosBOX due to heavy duty graphics.

[Brice Manuel]

Brice, your reaction is something I would expect from MM. Somebody shows you it does work and you say it don't. Disappointing.

I explained to him how what he showed actually works.

MM? Hardly (no offense MM), but when somebody says my post is wrong (and it is not), I do have explain their mistake to them so they will not make it again. His mistake is a common one (heck five of the seven kids in my class made it this school year alone on a pop quiz), people often see the command prompt and think it is DOS without realizing it isn't and not understanding what is really going on.

It is NOT me saying Windows 7 does not support DOS. It is a simple fact: Windows 7 does NOT support DOS. My thoughts have nothing to do with it. As I said before, If you want to run DOS software under Windows 7, you should look into DOSBox. DOSBox works great and it is free. The main benefit is DOSBox does NOT suffer from the same limitations as the emulation (NTVDM) the command prompt uses.

I have several old(ish) DOS programs that run just fine from a DOS prompt under w7 ultimate 32-bit.

Mel, I like you and have mucho respect for you, but no version of Windows 7 (or NT for that matter) has a DOS prompt. They have a command prompt.

[Tom Hanlin]

Boys... boys. You're violently agreeing with each other. Chill.

There has been no "real" DOS in decades. DOS programs have continued to run, regardless, because Windows has included a DOS layer. With 64-bit Windows, Microsoft decided to terminate the DOS support, presumably to gain sales from upgrades. You might think that's silly, because it takes very little power to emulate DOS these days, and because there are very few remaining DOS users.

Ha. Actually, there are quite a lot of DOS users, and they tend to come to PowerBASIC, because Visual Basic.NET is a weirdo C++ variant, not a BASIC as you know it. Now, you can still find ways to run GWBASIC if you're so inclined. But the future of the language is PowerBASIC. It will run your ancient programs, with some adaptation, forevermore. Or, at least, longer than you're liable to care about.

We still support Windows 95, as well as Windows 7. Microsoft can't claim the same.

[Mr. Kevin Diggins]

Hello,

has anyone tested Dos-Exe´s onto an Windows7 32bit / 64bit Version from
Microsoft ??

Does it work well ?

Best regards
Matthias Kuhn

P.S.: Now I`m using Windows Vista and it worked - but not every time fine.
Windows XP was much better for DOS-Apps.

Matthias,

My first screenshot clearly shows that Windows 7/32 does provide support for
DOS applications, despite what has been written to the contrary. I think most
visitors to this forum have enough experience to know that some DOS apps
will run better than others under NT and that some apps will not run at all.

But we cannot run any 16-bit software in Windows 7/64-bit operating
system - that includes Windows 3.x apps. Windows 7/64 will display a message,
like the one in the attached screenshot, if you try to run a 16 bit application.

I don't use many DOS applications anymore but I do have several that I still find
occasion to use, written with TurboBasic and PowerBasic back in the 80's
and 90's. And I still find uses for PBDos for one-off tasks that I can knock out
in a couple of minutes. I also use a couple of the old PC Magazine DOS utilities.
They all run fine in Windows 7/32-bit.

One of my PBDos applications is a scriptable civil engineering CAD program - lots
of floating point calculations, stroke fonts, scaling, rotations, translations, and more.
It still runs perfectly on Windows7/32 almost 20 years after I wrote it.

I was hesitant about Windows 7 at first but in the past 7 months, I've had
nothing but positive experiences with it.

I hope this was helpful.
Kevin

[Jim Dunn]

"A Postcard from California"

Anyway... does anyone else think that Al Jardine's song "A Postcard from California" sounds a *lot* like "Rhinestone Cowboy"? I mean, it sounds a *LOT* like Rhinestone Cowboy!

[Brice Manuel]

My first screenshot clearly shows that Windows 7/32 does provide support for
DOS applications, despite what has been written to the contrary.

Please show us a screenshot of this support without running it under emulation? You have yet to do this. You keep showing screenshots of it running under emulation which 100% contradicts your claims of DOS support. By this logic Windows 7 will also support old C64 software since there are Windows 7 emulators available for it.

For those who do not wish to live in the dark, and would like a basic understanding of the Windows NT Virtual DOS Machine (NTVDM) which Windows 7 uses for DOS emulation, MSDN has some very helpful articles:

The Emulation Model
Virtual DOS Machine Structure
Emulation Architecture
How MS-DOS VDMs Work

Overly simplified. With Windows, when something is not supported (also known as being nonnative), it has to run under emulation. The above links will give those unfamiliar with it a very good understanding of the DOS emulation which Windows 7 is using (as noted before, this is a part of all NT versions so the Windows 2000 info does apply) and how it works, why it has the limitations it does and how to use it effectively.

Contrary to some claims, my previous comments are 100% accurate and based on fact and can be reaffirmed by reading up on the subject. If people choose to live in ignorance, that is their problem. At the end of the day, the old saying holds true: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

We still support Windows 95, as well as Windows 7. Microsoft can't claim the same.

Heck, Microsoft often struggles from one version of Windows to the next.

[Brice Manuel]

Anyway... does anyone else think that Al Jardine's song "A Postcard from California" sounds a *lot* like "Rhinestone Cowboy"? I mean, it sounds a *LOT* like Rhinestone Cowboy!

I agree and Glen Campbell singing on the song A Postcard From California really doesn't help with the comparisons. At least it has better lyrics than Rhinestone Cowboy.

[Matthias Kuhn]

Hallo,

thanks for the quick and interesting replays, special to Brice and Kevin.

I´ve testet the virtual machine Dosbox - but I think for me it is better to
go with the time and use the actual Window7/32 Dos emulator and I solve the
difficulties where`ll come sure.

I`ve thousands of Dos-Code-lines and I`m not able to translate it to my WinPB 9.0 in short time because the commands are too different and on the other side - now I`d make an new prog with the opportunities of WinPB 9.0.

Thanks and best regards

Matthias Kuhn

[Mr. Kevin Diggins]

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

I like horse quotes too:

"There Are More Horse's Asses Than There Are Horses"

I believe reasonable people would agree that I answered Matthias' question.

"has anyone tested Dos-Exe´s onto an Windows7 32bit / 64bit Version from
Microsoft ??"

[Brice Manuel]

I like horse quotes too:

"There Are More Horse's Asses Than There Are Horses"

I believe reasonable people would agree that I answered Matthias' question.

, and yet you told me I was wrong in this post, but still have been unable to prove what I said was wrong and instead continually contradict yourself with your screenshots. You keep showing us images of DOS programs running under emulation on Windows 7 and try and lie to us and convince us that Windows 7 supports DOS. I guess you also believe Microsoft is wrong? No offense, but I will take Microsoft's word over yours as they wrote the OS. And guess what? The MSDN docs 100% reaffirm what I said!

[Jim Dunn]

Tom was right; the first guy said 'Win 7 does not support DOS', which is correct; the second guy said 'DOS apps run under the 32-bit version of Win 7', also correct.

Then it got messy; the second guy had a religion to proclaim, I think it was called 'The Truth About The Command Prompt'; the first guy stepped on one of his commandments.

My sin was bothering to write this.

[Roger Garstang]

Labeling the 32/64bit Windows Console application known as cmd.exe "DOS" in a shortcut is about as effective as labeling the Vista+ settings folder hack "Godmode"...Win Vista/7 isn't a FPS Game.

DOS was 16bit...I'd probably say the last true DOS was 6.22 back in 1994. Support for it ended 12/31/2001. There were variations of just command.com through Win ME which went as far as disabling extracting it...although copies exist. "DOS" 7+ is mostly different in that it supported FAT32, although I believe even then it was still 16bit, so much slower access to a 32bit FAT than Windows. NT Based Systems do not use DOS, but NT Native code which takes a CD to boot from and won't even fit on a floppy. DOS won't even read an NTFS drive without a special hack.

While certain applications work in the emulated cmd.exe "DOS", others do not and are limited. Char mappings are different, chars themselves are even drawn different. Response is slower. Some Graphics modes aren't supported. Windows handles certain user input. I have 3-4 DOS apps where I actually captured Ctrl+Alt+Del which can't be done in Windows. TSR Apps will most likely also be very difficult. You will need something like DOS Box (As suggested) or VM installs to get 100% usage.

[Mike Doty]

16-bit applications run fine with Windows 7 32-bit.
Full screen mode is not supported (it can be done with modifications.)

When each DOS app is loaded these also load:
cmd.exe
conhost.exe
ntvdm.exe

If you have trouble with expanded memory, edit:
\windows\system32\config.nt
EMM=RAM

[Brice Manuel]

Labeling the 32/64bit Windows Console application known as cmd.exe "DOS" in a shortcut is about as effective as labeling the Vista+ settings folder hack "Godmode"...Win Vista/7 isn't a FPS Game.

Although this is a very common mistake, I see it as having two main causes:

1. We have a generation of programmers who were literally never exposed to the days of a pure DOS system. They do not even know what DOS is.

2. We have another generation who is anti-change and has not kept up with the changes in modern operating systems and are trying to approach something when they have no understanding of what is actually going on. They expect things to work like they used to and when they see something that looks like it used to, they think things haven't changed.

16-bit applications run fine with Windows 7 32-bit.

Unfortunately, they are not supported and they will only run under emulation. The emulator is very limited and has compatibility issues.

I have no choice in the matter as the majority of DOS programs I use on a regular basis will not work under Windows 7's emulator. I have to use DOSBox or fire up one of my dedicated DOS machines.