COBOL program under Windows XP

[FrankLU]

Hello,

I have Cobol programs copiled with Micro Focus 3.2. These programs are still running fine unter Windows NT 4.0 SP6.

Now I want the same programs run on PC's with Windows XP Prof. And now I got problems. First the programms are running fine, but when the program tries to call a sub-program or a sub-program for print-output I got different error messages:
021 - File is a directory;
173 - Called program not found;
no message - program simply hangs, the CPU use is > 95% for task ntdvm;

I tries to use FILES=150 and BUFFERS=50 in Config.sys, but it didn't helped.

Can anybody help? Thank's in advance.

Frank

 

[webrabbit]

Are the sub-programs .EXE, .INT, or .GNT? How is the main program linked? Have you tried using XM?

 

[Crox]

Hi,

does the command FORCEDOS help you?

Regards,

Crox

 

[FrankLU]

Hello webrabbit!

The sub-programs are EXE-files. They are linked under Windows NT (MS-DOS version ??) with the MS-DOS command LINK and a COBOL.DIR containing the parameters NOALTER NOBOUND LINKCOUNT"512" CALLFH"EXTFH" TARGET"386-16" ANS85 REMOVE"TIMEOUT" SEGSIZE"32768" LINKCHECK.

In the programs I use CALL and CANCEL for the sub-programs.

Yes, I use XM.

And I have no problems with the programs unter Windows NT.

Any ideas?

Frank

 

[TonHu]

the "files" and "buffers" setting can either be in the short-cut (icon) specific config.sys, or have to be put in config.nt (SYSTEM32 dir) to be global to all apps.
The cobol.dir is a run-time setting afaik, and should be copied to the app-dir?

HTH
TonHu

 

[webrabbit]

The COBOL.DIR file is for compile-time only.

The environment variable COBDIR must point to the COBOL libraries if they are not in the current directory. The COBOL libraries have the extension .LBR.

 

[ShadowFox333]

Have you tried using the entire path name in the calling sequence the default may not be the programs current folder.
Bob

 

[FrankLU]

Thanks a lot for your suggestions.

I only mentioned the COBOL.DIR because I thought, the way I linked the files for the EXE-files is perhaps important. I know, that the COBOL.DIR-file has nothing to do with the execution of the programs.

All EXE-files are in the same directory. And again: Under Windows NT I have no problems with running all programs, only with Windows XP. So I think, coding and linking is ok, but the memory management under Windows XP causes problems.

I tried BUFFER and FILES in the CONFIG.SYS without success. I will try it in the CONFIG.NT in SYSTEM32. This could be the solution, because Microsoft says that CONFIG.SYS is without any effect. And in the CONFIG.NT FUFFERS=20 is the standard. That, of course, is not enough.

I will report after I will be able to make a test run outside the test environment.

 

[FrankLU]

It seems, that this was the solution of the problem.

Thanks you all for the support!

Frank

 

[ceh4702]

On an XP machine you might be able to run the COBOL off of a directory with the OLD DOS in it. Might also have to force the program to handle the memory as extended memory instead of the Windows virtual memory. I have heard of uing a shortcut and starting the compiler in a different directory so it knows where the DOS is. Might be some other tricks.

You could take a computer and install NT and then install XP and make it dual boot. Oh, I hate that word. There are some programs for virtual environments.

Toms Hardware had an article on a product made by VMWare for Virtual Operating Systems.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20040305/index.html

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[k5tm]

On the topic of using virtual machines, Microsoft is now the vendor of VirtualPC. I have used this, and it works. Microsoft pitches this product as a way to protect your legacy applications, which is the need here. (I use it to run...Linux )

Tom Morrison

http://www.liant.com