# Is there a way to have a DOS program terminate without the screen clearing?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-have-a-dos-program-terminate-without-the-screen-clearing/62652>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 20, 2001, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-have-a-dos-program-terminate-without-the-screen-clearing/62652 "2001-04-20T08:10:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Cabbage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@Cabbage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabbage)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2001, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-have-a-dos-program-terminate-without-the-screen-clearing/62652/1 "2001-04-20T08:10:43Z")

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I don’t know if the subject is completely clear, but here’s the deal: I recently bought a collection of the old Infocom text adventure games (DOS based, I’m using Windows 98). I was playing one of the games tonight, and when I got to the end, the screen cleared and all I had was this old message:

> [@](#):
>
> MICROSOFT WINDOWS POP-UP PROGRAM SUPPORT
> 
> Your pop-up program is ready to run. When you have finished using it, press Ctrl+C to close this window and return to Windows.

Apparently the end of the game came, then the screen cleared immediately to give me that message. I never get to see how the game ends, and this is pissing me off. If I try rebooting the computer in DOS mode, when I get to the end of the game, again, the screen clears and all I get is a DOS prompt.

How can I get the computer to pause at the end of the game, instead of having it completely terminate and clear the screen?

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**Author:** ![Cabbage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@Cabbage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabbage)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2001, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-have-a-dos-program-terminate-without-the-screen-clearing/62652/2 "2001-04-20T08:47:38Z")

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Never mind, all it took was a “pause” command in the batch file; pretty simple after all. :o

Moderator, go ahead and close this thread if you like.

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**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2001, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-have-a-dos-program-terminate-without-the-screen-clearing/62652/3 "2001-04-20T13:06:38Z")

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Also right clicking on the icon \> properties you should find a setting to close the dos box on exit

now yo may close the thread 😉