Can't fill screen in XP home edition

[Mike Doty]

got a call from a user that can't get a
dos program to fill the entire screen
using windows xp home edition.
had him try properties, layout and changed
size from 80 x 24 to 80 x 300 and nothing changes.
he says full screen is also checked.
the best he can get is about 3/4 of his
monitor filled from the top and a 3 inch
blue space at the bottom.
waiting to hear back if it is an lcd monitor.
thought this sounded familar: http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pb...read.php?t=219

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[this message has been edited by mike doty (edited november 14, 2001).]

[David J Walker]

Is it on a laptop? Most of my users use laptops, & its endless
fun trying to get into the BIOS to set the screen for DOS apps.

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[Mike Doty]

No. It is a normal desktop PC.

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[Lance Edmonds]

Two more possibilities to check:

1. Have you confirmed it actually is in full-screen mode (ALT+ENTER)?

2. It simply needs to have the screen size/position settings adjusted with the onscreen or manual monitor controls. You'd be amazed how often Users assume a monitor sorts itself out and don't know what all the knobs and switches actually do.




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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Mike Doty]

Yes, tried Alt + Enter. He says no knobs
on this monitor and it worked great before
installing XP.

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[Jerry Fielden]

SCREEN 12
SCREEN 0
At the beginning in PB & QB
Also use before SHELL for other DOS programs



[This message has been edited by Jerry Fielden (edited November 15, 2001).]

[Lance Edmonds]

Or ask Windows to do it for you:

' Switch to full screen via Windows own API
if istrue bit(pbvHost,8) or ucase$(environ$("OS")) = "WINDOWS_NT" then
    ! push DS
    ! mov AX,&H168B
    ! xor BX,BX
    ! int &H2F
    ! pop DS
end if

* Note: there is no programmatic way to go back into windowed mode without the aide of a Windows application to do the dirty work.
However, the easiest way would be to use a tool like DOSBOX - see http://www.powerbasic.com/products/dosbox/


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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Mike Doty]

thanks, jerry! i will definitely try this tomorrow.
lance, what do you think about this? http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pb...ad.php?t=25984

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[this message has been edited by mike doty (edited november 16, 2001).]

[Jerry Fielden]

Lance,

It does work, but it does 50 rows. What would I have to change
to do 25.

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[Lance Edmonds]

I'd use the INT &H2F method over the SCREEN 12 method any day of the week!

Basically, the SCREEN 12 technique may or may not switch to full-screen mode - it depends on whether the O/S and the hardware can support windowed screen 12 mode, however the INT &H2F technique is guaranteed to do the job since it is actually using an 'entry point' into the Windows API.

Windows NT and Windows 2000 (and I suspect XP - I don't have XP to test with) set the default Console and DOS window size to 300x80, so it is obvously selecting the closest "standard" size of 50x80 when switching to full-screen (there are 3 generally supported full-screen sizes of 80x25, 80x43 and 80x50, and maybe 40x25, etc).

Switching to a standard size is the expected behavior for a full-screen switch from other non-standard Console sizes such as 80x26, commonly used in Console applications.

Anyway, there are three possible ways to solve the problem that come to mind:

• [1] Try using the WIDTH 80,25 statement (this is probably the preferred method).
  
  [2] Create a shortcut to run the DOS app, and specify the DOS window size there.
  
  [3] If you have PB/CC, create a "launcher" app that does a CONSOLE SCREEN 80,25 then does an asynchronous SHELL (function) to launch the DOS app.

I hope that helps!


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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Mike Doty]

Is there a Microsoft bulletin on this?



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[Jerry Fielden]

I think we have a winner. WIDTH 80,25 by itself.

I tried it without that ASM code and it worked in every case.
It worked with it also.

I tried all standard modes like , WIDTH 80,25...80,43...80,50 and
it worked every time in full screen mode when I filled up the
screen with charecters.



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[Mike Doty]

Thanks very much!
Wonder why the long beta testing
of XP didn't bring this out?


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[Brad D Byrne]

Maybe MS is trying to KILL Dos-----Without Dos, the game
Developers would have to be dependant on DirectX----

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[Jerry Fielden]

Mike, I may have spoken to soon about WIDTH, I think it just
corrects our problems with the full screen being displayed and
the text jammed up at the top.



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[Mike Doty]

Jerry,
I'm a little confused on what you just said.
Does WIDTH 25, 80 solve the problem?
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>


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[Jerry Fielden]

Yep, I believe it will.

I Think that my dos text screen programs are starting up in
80x50 full screen. I upgraded from win98 and I never had that
problem before. Running a 80x25 program in 80x50 full screen
makes everything display at the top. So WIDTH 80,25 inserted
in the code should correct our problems.


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[Mike Doty]

Great, I'm sending out an update today!

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[Lance Edmonds]

Originally posted by Brad D Byrne:
Maybe MS is trying to KILL Dos-----Without Dos, the game
Developers would have to be dependant on DirectX----

Brad, what has this got to do with full-screen switching?

DOS support (using the MSDOS 5.0 NTVDM emulator) is still present in Windows XP, just like with WIndows 2000 and Windows NT.



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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Brad D Byrne]

Originally posted by Lance Edmonds:
Brad, what has this got to do with full-screen switching?
DOS support (using the MSDOS 5.0 NTVDM emulator) is still present in Windows XP, just like with WIndows 2000 and Windows NT.
[/B]

Lance,

Good to know, I Wasn't aware of that, I don't know anything about
XP,2000, or NT----And I probably shouldn't interrupt Serious Talk
w/ snide remarks, But I do believe that MS would get rid of DOS if
they could, and I believe that they will try to make it harder for
DOS programs to run with their future releases-----Maybe I'm to
Cynical, I hope I'm wrong-----B.



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