DOSBox 0.63, BASIC, QuickBASIC 4.5 and Windows XP

[Ralph]

Dr_Davenstein and Buff1:

It's been a year since my last post. Hope you two are still around here, as I have more news on the Subject topic.

I have now tried three computers at our local club, which are running Windows XP Home Edition Version 5.1, same as mine. Two had Service Pack 1, the third one had Service Pack 2, same as mine. All three had Norton AntiVirus, same as I have. Their Norton had expired in 2004, while mine is active. There didn't seem to be any Spyware on those three; I have Webroot Spy Sweeper (tm).

On all three local club computers, I had no trouble properly running QB 4.5 graphics programs. My QuickBASIC 4.5 files were all on a 3 1/2" floppy, as was my graphics QB.bas program. Running Win XP, I went to drive A:, opened QB.exe, then loaded the graphics program into QB, and ran it fine.

So, the big announcement I have is,

WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION, SERVICE PACKS 1 OR 2 ARE NOT THE CULPRITS that give me the minimizing problem!

By the way, the well-known QuickBASIC master, Na_th_an, from Spain, has suggested that my problem probably stems from some resident program running in the background, so I am now working slowly on this.

Now, when the club gets the Norton updated and running, I will try my QB 4.5 and the graphics program. If it runs, Norton would seem to be the culprit, and I'll try my computer with Norton disabled. If it fails, Norton is not the culprit, and I'll double check it on my computer.

The next step will be disabling the things that are on my Taskbar (?). My Taskbar has, on the left, the Start button, plus four shorcuts, none of which can be the culprit.

On the right, it has eleven icons, none of which are shortcuts, as such. The rightmost is Time, next comes VAIO Update (for my SONY computer), a "No Scanner Found" notice, Yahoo! Messanger, Windows Messenger, Norton AntiVirus Auto-Protection-Enabled, Norton Internet Security-Enabeled, Adobe Photo Downloader, Timer Recording Manger, Webroot Spy Sweeper (tm), and Volume. One or more of these may be the culprits, and will be up for inspection, one by one. Wish me luck!

[Ralph]

UPDATE!
Today, in trying to get rid of a slight noise problem when I listen to music on a CD ROM, I was told to run msconfig, and there, to leave the first 8 checkboxes checked, and to uncheck the remaining (20) checkboxes. This didn't solve the problem, but, I did see that five of the eleven icons in the right-side of the Taskbar were missing, besides the 20 unchecked check boxes. So..., I opend QB.exe from my 3 1/2" floppy, which opened in a full screen. I looked for my graphics program, loaded it in QB, and ran it. It runs great! Hooray!!!

I tried"
1. Loading QB from the floppy and the graphics program also.
2. Loading QB from my C: drive and the grapics from the 3 1/2" floppy.
3. Loading QB from my C: drive and the graphics from the C: drive.
4. Loading Qb from the 3 1/2" floppy and the graphics from the C: drive.
All four methos worked fine!

So, the conclusion nos must be that one of the 20 unchecked boxes was the culprit. At this time, I don't see the need for determining which one or ones create the problem, unless someone else needs this kind of help.

[Doc]

Hi. I've still posted around here, incognito, but it seems that tis place has lost it's shimmer. I'm glad you got your program to work though!

[Ralph]

Thank you for responding, Doc (Dr_Davenstein, I presume?)

Yes, I have noticed that this forum has, apparently, lost it's interest to many folk, but, I don't know the reason. I think that it has been helpful to a group of people who have presented their problems and questions relating to the various BASICs and QBs that still function in a useful manner for some. And, by eliminating the problems, such as mine, it would seem that this kind of forum would get an increase in use, instead of a noticeable decline. But, one never knows what makes people tick in a certain manner.

For what it's worth, I check into this forum, as well as QBNews.com, daily, in case someone has posted. If so, I read the post to see if it is a problem or question that I can contribute to, or if it is something I am interested in learning more about, as I still feel a strong interest in, especially, the QuickBASIC 4.5 experience and use.

Most of what I see focuses on graphics, especially, games. I, personally, am strongly oriented towards programing general engineering solutions and such, but I don't see very much of this. And, most of what I do see, are programs that have not been properly checked by a competent, second person, so that the programs are, usually, difficult to understand and faulted, sometimes by wrong assumptions or formulas.

Well, anyway, I'll see you around, Doc

[Ralph]

Whopee! I found the culprit that didn't let me run graphics programs properly in QuickBASIC 4.5, Is one called "flatbed". I managed to check all 27 checkboxes, minus the one for flatbed, and, QuickBASIC runs all programs without any problem at all!