Re: A problem and a request...

From: Mark Landers (mlanders@netcom.com)
Date: Sun, 01 Jun 1997 13:06:51 -0400

In article <BbXjz8MBATSK090yn@america.net>,
judge@america.net (Dirk A. Loedding) wrote:
:Kevin Martin <cannon@nic.com> wrote:
:
:>On Wed, 28 May 1997, Dirk A. Loedding wrote:
:
:>> First, the problem.
:>> application. Quite annoying. I ended up digging up a copy of Yarn95,
:>> v.90, and installing that.
:
:>Aha. So the machine is a Win95 machine?
:
:Yes. Brand new, even. Didn't have a choice in the matter.
:
:>I couldn't get Yarn (without Yarn95) to run on mine, either, although
:>the problem was more a black screen upon program exit than a solid
:>lockup -- I could hit Alt-F4 and exit Windows "blind" to reset.
:
:Oh, Yarn .92 ran just fine. It was just when I tried to do anything
:*else* that I ran into problems...whole thing locked up tighter than a
:drum... *NOTHING* worked at all.
:
:>The cure in my case was a new video driver -- the default one that came
:>with Win95 couldn't cope with the demands that Yarn made on it, modest
:>though they were. I found out, more or less by accident, that after
:>replacing that video driver I no longer HAD to use Yarn95.
:
:Hmm. I wonder if that's the problem here...I'll see if one of the W95
:sites around has a newer driver for the video card in this machine. Of
:course, that will require me figuring out what card I have... Probably
:some proprietary Compaq card.
:
:>Then again, I usually run Yarn on my WfW machine, still. :-)
:
:Never had a bit of trouble on WfW with Yarn.
:
:>> Anyone have any work-arounds for the line-wrapping problem, assuming a
:>> new version is not feasible, for whatever reason?
:
:>Flame the hell out of them. It's a good stress-reliever, and nothing they
:>have to say is worth reading anyway. :-)
:
:Hehe. You're probably right. :)
:

The Win95 virus... er, operating system is a pain in the butt when you
try to run some dos programs. Fortunately, there is a way to quit Win95
and have it remove itself from memeory; this will let you do anything
in dos except undelete.
====================================================================
PC Labs Online: Solutions: User-to-User
USER-TO-USER
Shut Down Windows 95 To DOS

I read "Exiting from Windows 95 to DOS," in the User-to-User column of
March 26, 1996, and it seems Microsoft completely misrepresented the
situation. You most certainly can exit from Windows 95 to DOS. Also,
your discussion of exiting Windows 95 and restoring the screen with
MODE CO80 was not complete. I completely disassembled WIN.COM months
ago and published my findings on my Web page, located at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/NIFTY_TOOLS. You can exit to
DOS only if COMMAND.COM is loaded before WIN.COM at startup. The system
needs to load COMMAND.COM for processing AUTOEXEC.BAT, so as long as
your system has an AUTOEXEC.BAT file, it will load COMMAND.COM at
startup. As a bonus, when COMMAND.COM is preloaded, Windows 95 doesn't
have to execute it for each DOS box. WIN.COM loads the Windows 95
graphical user interface and transfers control to it. When Windows 95's
GUI shuts down, control returns to WIN.COM, which displays a bitmap
stating that it is OK to turn off your PC. It then continues executing
in a tight loop that swallows all keystrokes, giving the impression
that you must reboot your PC. But if the shutdown bitmap
(c:\windows\logos.sys) can't be found, WIN.COM displays a text message
and drops to the familiar command prompt! I verified that renaming or
removing this file had no adverse effects anywhere else in Windows 95.
If you follow these steps, you can enable exit to DOS on your Windows
95 system: Create or edit an AUTOEXEC.BAT file. It should contain at
least the following lines: path c:\windows;c:\windows\command;c:\doswin
If AUTOEXEC.BAT already exists on your system, add "win" as its last
line. Eliminate the shutdown bitmap. Use Explorer to delete or rename
the file c:\windows\logos.sys. Optionally delete or rename
c:\windows\logow.sys, too (the "Please wait" screen). Force booting to
the command prompt. While still in Explorer, locate the file
c:\msdos.sys. If you don't see it, select Options from the View menu,
choose Show All Files, and click on OK. Right-click on the filename and
select Properties from the context menu. Deselect the Read-only and
Hidden check boxes and click on OK. Open the file with Notepad, insert
the line BootGui=0 in the [Options] section. Save the file and restore
its Read-only and Hidden properties. This makes the system boot to a
command prompt, but win in the last line of AUTOEXEC.BAT starts Windows
95. Restart your computer. Now, when you choose "Shut down the
computer" from the Shut Down Windows dialog, you'll actually exit to
DOS. To return to Windows 95, just type WIN.

GARY TESSLER, San Ramon, California

PC MAGAZINE: As we noted in the earlier article referenced here,
Microsoft's stated position is that after you exit from Windows 95, the
system is in an unstable state. My previous investigation seemed to
support this statement; I could reach a DOS prompt on some systems but
not others. After the application of Mr. Tessler's clear instructions,
however, all of these systems successfully exited to DOS and returned
to Windows 95 repeatedly and with no difficulty. The inconsistencies in
earlier results were apparently caused by differences in configuration.
Once you've applied this tip, you'll have no doubt that DOS is still
alive. The instructions above do assume that your Windows 95 directory
is c:\windows. Naturally, if Windows 95 is installed in a different
directory, you'll have to replace every instance of c:\windows with
that directory. Also, to reveal DOS in all its glory, you can add the
line Logo=0 to the [Options] section of msdos.sys. Now the Windows 95
opening logo will not hide the processing of CONFIG.SYS and
AUTOEXEC.BAT at startup.

--Neil J. Rubenking
Return to User-to-User index... Copyright (c) 1996 Ziff-Davis
Publishing Company
====================================================================

I'm running Yarn092 in dos now with no problems.

--
     Mark Landers       |      The object of opening the mind
                        |         as of opening the mouth
  mlanders@netcom.com   |  is to close it again on something solid
                        |           - G. K. Chesterton -
------------------------------------------------------------------
      http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2034/candy.html