Win98 and DOS mode

Factual Questions
1

I hate posting tech questions here, but I’ve never found a specific Windows board that proved particularly helpful, so here goes…

At the request of a user, I’ve replaced a Win3.1/DOS machine with one that runs win98; I have moved the (DOS)applications across and they work OK when booted into DOS mode, except for one thing: the print output doesn’t spool to the printer’s own hardware buffers any more (they are Epson FX80s), so the user sits watching a frozen screen until printer output is finished.

Since they are printing in DOS mode, there are not any drivers in which I could configure spool settings, so I’m at a loss to think what else I can try. Any practical suggestions will be most welcome (except for criticism that we’re stuck in the 1980s - that particular aspect of the problem isn’t something I can change at the moment).

2

Would those applications run in DOS boxes?

3

I dunno how you have it setup for running in DOS, but if you are just running the program in Win 98’s DOS mode…

Is it a network printer that you have “captured” to LPT1: (or another local port) or is the printer just connected to that PC via a parallel cable?

I haven’t touched a setup of this type for a while, but I seem to remember there being a setting in Windows telling the printer to spool MS-DOS jobs.

If memory serves, I believe you go into the printers folder (Start/settings/printers) then right click on the printer in question, click on the details tab, then on the port settings button. You should then be able to tick “Spool MS-DOS print jobs”.

This will only work if the printer is connected (or captured from the network) to a local (LPT) port.

Sorry if this is no help. Good luck!

4

It’s a pair of local printers in LPT1 and 2 the DOS software prints directly to them (or it did under true DOS) There are no Windows printers to configure.

It’s running under DOS mode (i.e. ‘restart the machine in DOS mode’), I’m not sure if it would run properly in a window; we’ve had problems with this before as some of the apps in this family expect exclusive disk access (or something like that).

5

I just had a quick look on the Inet and a few places are suggesting to actually turn off the “Spool MS-DOS print jobs” setting I mentioned in the last post if you are having problems when printing from DOS programs.

Try changing whatever it is currently set to, I guess?

I also found this which may or may not help.

6

There isn’t any such setting; the printers are not installed in Windows at all.

The link gave me a few ideas to try though, thanks.

7

Ah… Sorry, I can’t find anything at all for slow printing purely in DOS. There are plenty of articles on slow printing from DOS programs running under windows, but they all seem to concern changing settings in the windows printer driver and adding buffer settings to the system.ini file.

What program is it?

Perhaps it could be worth another try at getting it working from windows?

Out of interest, does it print immediately if you quit the program soon after sending the print job? (Many of the “from windows” issues with printing from DOS programs mention this, so if you have the same symptoms, perhaps the same solutions will work.)

8

No, you can’t actually quit (or do anything) until the job finishes; the machine is waiting for the job to end.

It’s a proprietary consignment tracking program - one of my jobs is to redevelop it as a Windows App (maybe I should just get on with that).