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GrandView and Tame
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Posted by Cassius
Apr 5, 2008 at 03:43 PM
Derek said,
2. I looked in my config.nt and Autoexec.nt files (both in c:\WINDOWS\system32\) and noticed that I still had references to Tame in the latter, but REMMed out - apart from a path statement to its exe file (which was uninstalled). It may be worth looking to see if anything untoward is in yours.
==================
Derek, was there anything not REMmed in your Config.nt?
I’ve tried changing almost everything to no avail.
Does the mouse pointer in your GV look like an ordinary windows pointer or like a square box?
I found, or re-found, a few interesting things in my unsuccessful quest:
1) If the GV display shrinks, you MAY be able to restore it by opening the GV Windows menu and select Zoom. On my machine this caused the display to shrink, but repeating this procedure caused my display to restore to full size.
2) The /V parameter gives me a better display.
3) (You probably know this; I didn’t.) With GV open, right-clicking on the GV title bar or the GV icon in the task bar opensmenus that contain a “properties” item that is different than the PIF properties. Changing the setting for fonts gave me a better display.
-c
Posted by Cassius
Apr 6, 2008 at 01:22 AM
WARNING!!!
In the above missive, I said,
“3) (You probably know this; I didn’t.) With GV open, right-clicking on the GV title bar or the GV icon in the task bar opens a menu that contains a “properties” item that is different than the PIF properties. Changing the setting for fonts gave me a better display. “
It did give me a better display, but it created unacceptable problems. I changed the fonts back.
-c
Posted by Derek Cornish
Apr 6, 2008 at 06:31 AM
Cassius wrote:
>Derek, was there anything not REMmed in your
>Config.nt?
>
>I’ve tried changing almost everything to no avail.
>
These are the only active lines in my config.nt:
dos=high, umb
device=%SystemRoot%\system32\himem.sys
files=60
In autoexec.nt, the following are not remmed out:
REM Install CD ROM extensions
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\mscdexnt.exe
REM Install network redirector (load before dosx.exe)
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\redir
REM Install DPMI support
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\dosx
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 T3
>Does the mouse
>pointer in your GV look like an ordinary windows pointer or like a square box?
>
It looks like an ordinary pointer. The square box is the cursor, operated by the arrow keys etc.
Is there anything special about your XP Media Center Edition that might cause the pointer to fail?- just clutching at straws really. Does the point appear in any of your other DOS programs - if you use any?
Derek
Posted by Derek Cornish
Apr 6, 2008 at 07:55 AM
Cassius,
One other thing - about the menu of items you get by right-clicking on the GV title bar or taskbar icon…
On the list of items there is one below the “Properties” menu item that reads “Hide mouse pointer”. (I hadn’t noticed it before, but I suppose it must always have been there, and it is present for all my DOS programs - ergo, must be an option for the Windows Virtual DOS Machine.)
When I clicked this item I lost my pointer in GV. After a momentary panic (Argh! How would I be able to get it back?) I Alt-Tabbed to another program. This gave me my usual Windows mouse pointer back. When I right-clicked on the GV Task-bar again to pop up the menu, the item in question (the last one on the list) now read “Display mouse pointer”. When I did so - by using the down-arrow to operate the menu highlight bar (the windows pointer did not work in it) - the Windows pointer worked again in GV.
Incidentally, doing things like re-sizing the GV window while the pointer is hidden made odd things happen to the pointer in my windows programs until I shut down GV. Then things went back to normal.
At first I thought it might give the answer to your problem, but it is possible that you don’t have this “display/hide pointer” menu item on that NTVDM context menu in your setup. But at any rate it may give some clue to what is happening.
I think I must have some more general default command “Display mouse pointer” ON somewhere in my setup because I noticed that when I closed GV with the mouse pointer still hidden, the pointer came back again on its own when I started up GV again. Maybe someone else who knows more than I do about how to change the defaults for the ntvdm window can help out here. There was nothing on the “defaults” menu item on the context menu you mentioned that seemed relevant.
One last thing. I get the windows mouse pointer in GV whether I run it under cmd.exe or command.com. See:
http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/39566/whats-windows-xps-ms-dos-command-prompt.html
I hope somewhere in that farrago of info there might be something useful :-)
Derek
Posted by Cassius
Apr 6, 2008 at 07:48 PM
Derek, thank you for all your help and suggestions.
Our autoexec.nt and config.nt files have identical operating (non-REMmed) commands. Your thought that GV might work better under command.com was great. I tried it but, regrettably, it didn’t help.
I do have the display/hide pointer item and played with it. Didn’t help. By the way, my mouse pointer in GV is the Windows pointer.
I’ve played with my touchpad settings also to no avail.
One strange thing is that before I reinstalled Windows in November, the mouse pointer would work on menu items once a menu itself was opened. Now that doesn’t work either.
As far as Media Center Edition being the problem, who knows? It could also be one of the Toshiba utilities on my machine or an errant character in a line of code. As geneticists are now discovering, a small variation in a DNA strand can have devastating effects. Hence my concern about some of the genetic engineering currently occurring in the U.S.
One positive item. I just discovered that if I copy text from a Windows file, I can paste it into GV by just clicking the right touchpad button. Also, if I highlight text in GV and then press Enter, the text is copied onto the clipboard and can be pasted into a Windows file. Neither of these require my opening a menu.
Thanks again. I’ll keep working on the problem and will let you/“the group” know if anything develops.
-c