Software of the Month Club 1998 March/Software of the Month Club 1998 March.iso/pc/dos/biz/sharecon/dos-win.txt

Text File | 1997-10-06 | 4KB | 62 lines

The notion that you have to use "Windows programs" on your Windows equipped
computer is false. Almost all software written for DOS will run quite happily
under Windows too. The reverse, however, is not possible at all! So in my way
of thinking, you are always better off choosing a DOS application over a
Windows one, if they do the same thing for you. This is especially true in a
business environment where you might have a wide variety of hardware; If you
go with DOS software you are not locking yourself into unnessisary capital
expenditures to replace otherwise perfectly good (but not "cutting edge") PCs.

Windows itself has a number of provisions to accomodate and enhance the
operation of DOS software. However, the documentation does not exactly shout
about these things. But, buried in the manual somewhere you should find a
chapter on "Non-Windows Applications" (or something like that). (In the
Windows book I use, there are 23 pages out of about 650 that discuss this.)

What follows are a few practical tips I've learned for running DOS stuff in
Windows 3.1. Note: I am most certainly NOT claiming to be an expert at this! I
hope these tips will give you some ideas, but read your manual for better
information.

STARTING DOS PROGRAMS: If you haven't already got an icon set up you can just
click on a program's executable file while viewing the directory from the file
manager. Executable files have the extension .EXE or .COM or .BAT - click on
the one where the first part of the file name is the same as the DOS command
that you type to start it. For example, to run Easy Money 1.6 from DOS, you
type ezm16 and press <ENTER>. To run it from the Windows file manager, click
on the file EZM16.EXE

SET UP A REGULAR ICON TO CLICK: From the program manager, click on the word
"File" in the top left corner. Click on "New" in the drop-down menu, then
click OK to accept new program item. Fill in a description, command line, and
working directory, and click OK. For example, to set up Easy Money 1.6, the
description is Easy Money 1.6, the command line is EZM16, and the working
directory is c:\ezmoney - once you have clicked OK, a new program item will
appear in whatever program group was active when you started. From then on,
clicking that icon will start Easy Money.

RUN DOS APPICATION IN A WINDOW: This is a *really* handy thing to know about!
Once you have your DOS application running from Windows, press ALT + ENTER.
Cool, eh? Now "pull" the sides of the window out as far as they will go, so
that you have the entire DOS screen in view. To adjust the size of the window,
click on the little box in the top left corner, then click on "fonts". Its
pretty self-explanitory from there; save the setting when you like it. Read up
on .PIF files for other related neat stuff.

SWITCHING IN AND OUT OF WINDOWED PROGRAMS: Press and hold the ALT key, and
press the TAB key. Each time you press TAB, the name of a program running in
the background will be displayed. Release the ALT key when you see the one you
want.

CUTTING AND PASTING: DOS programs running in a window can make use of the
"clipboard" almost as well as native Windows programs (at least with text). To
place text from a DOS application into the clipboard, click on the top left
box, then on "edit", then "mark". Now, use the mouse to highlight the text you
wish to copy, and press ENTER when done. Now ALT-TAB to bring the target
program to the front. Place the cursor in the target program where you want
pasting to start, then click the top left box, then on "edit", then "paste".
Remember, the DOS program(s) must be running in a window for this to work!

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