{"id":7103,"date":"2015-01-23T00:01:31","date_gmt":"2015-01-23T08:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=7103"},"modified":"2015-01-17T14:44:20","modified_gmt":"2015-01-17T22:44:20","slug":"my-dos-utilities-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=7103","title":{"rendered":"My DOS Utilities, Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each time I setup a new PC, I copy over my all-time favorite DOS utilities. They dwell in a special folder, COMMANDS\\<\/code>, found off my main profile folder in Windows. I even configure the DOS prompt program, CMD.EXE<\/code>, so that it references that folder, giving me command line access to my favorite text mode tools. And now they don’t work.
\n
\nI’m a command line nut. Some things just work faster at the DOS prompt, although I confess to using a terminal window under Unix more than I use a DOS command prompt. Still, I prefer to pop up a DOS window every so often and have a go.<\/p>\n

Upon setting up my latest computer, I copied over all my favorite DOS command line utilities. I’ve written about them before on this blog (click here<\/a>). Those same utilities I wrote about a year-and-a-half ago won’t work today, not on my latest PC.<\/p>\n

I’m seriously bummed.<\/p>\n

In a situation such as this, Windows provides a modicum of relief: You can configure an older program to run under the guise of a previous version of Windows. It’s called Compatibility Mode and it’s been around for a long time.<\/p>\n

What you do is find the antique program, right-click and choose Properties. Click the Compatibility tab in the program’s Properties dialog box, similar to what’s shown in Figure 1.<\/p>\n

\"Figure

Figure 1. Setting an older program’s compatibility mode.<\/p><\/div>\n

Choose a Windows version, such as Windows 98\/Me shown in the figure. The program will supposedly run just as it did back under the named operating system. That’s the solution for running older DOS programs, such as my clutch of utilities that I have used, adored, and even wrote since the 1980s.<\/p>\n

My problem? It didn’t work.<\/p>\n

Being observant, I looked at the same dialog box (Figure 1) and click the Run Compatibility Troubleshooter button. It basically told me that my programs were too old and to get newer versions.<\/p>\n

Thank you very much!<\/p>\n

Some of the programs are mine and, miraculously, I still have the source code. So I can recompile them. But a lot of the utilities I use were written by others, such as the LIST<\/code> utility or the Q<\/code> editor. I don’t have source code for those and can’t recompile them.<\/p>\n

Before you mention it, yes I could simply use the DOSBox program and effectively start a DOS 5 window in which I could use my utilities. But that’s not good enough!<\/p>\n

The dern thing is that these utilities run on another computer that’s had Windows 7 in place for a few years. They run just fine! But the newer computer, which runs Windows 7 as well — same version number and everything — won’t even touch the programs.<\/p>\n

This inconvenience doesn’t stop me from getting work done. In fact, I’m more than happy to find alternative utilities and wipe away a nostalgic tear as I change my command line habits. Either that, or I can forgo DOS all together and switch over to Cygwin or just kiss everything buh-bye and once again ponder the usefulness of the Linux switch.<\/p>\n

“Someday,” he says. “Someday.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not compatible? Bah!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7103"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7117,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7103\/revisions\/7117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}