printing in windows2000

[rargi2002]

Hey Guys, i have 2 question:

1) i have an application in fox 2.5 for dos runnig under win98 in a LAN(1 server and 8 workstation). I need to migrate to win2000 server and i would like to know if there is any problem with compatibility betwen fox and win2000.The NTFS partition of the disk has any risk with fox?.
2)In the server i use two printers(one is using the parallel port and the other one is using a Cmos I/O(and extra port). I have read in a magazine that win2000 has problem with printers is that true?

any help will be appreciated,

thank you very much for your time

Ramon

 

[rgbean]

Ramon,
The biggest difference is that Win 2000 (like NT and XP) really has no DOS - just a DOS emulator, and this can cause problems. Also these OSs don't allow direct access to the hardware, so if you have any .BINs or .PLBs or low-level IO code that directly accesses the ports, they may not work.

Make sure you have a MEMLIMIT in it's CONFIG.FP file - it seems to help for some situations. Since FoxPro DOS or Windows can't use more than 16MB, I use MEMLIMIT = 60, 2048, 16384. Note: Others have disputed these numbers, but they work for me!

Some people have had luck with TameDOS -

http://www.tamedos.com/tame/tamehome.htm

when running DOS
programs under NT/2000/XP. There is also a couple different versions of a free utility called DOSIdle that some claim works for them.

Rick

 

[obskure]

in xp the &quot;dos shell&quot; is os/2-nt cmd.exe <thanks to help from IBM to bail Micro_soft out' any way can use a more dosier shell like command.com.. check out PCMAG web site for details; like also has some bsd386 code. What a world.

 

[JRB-Bldr]

Do a Keyword Search for:
&quot;DOS PRINT 2000&quot;
and
&quot;DOS PRINT 2K&quot;
and you will find a number of previous postings where people had issues with FPD printing in a Win 2K or XP environment.

You will also find a variety of replies/suggestions there as well.

Good Luck,


JRB-Bldr
VisionQuest Consulting
Business Analyst & CIO Consulting Services
CIOServices@yahoo.com

 

[OnePunchMickey]

NTFS isn't a problem ... like rqbean said, DOS / Win16 apps run in an emulated machine under Windows 2000, so you're well isolated from the OS file system.

I'd have to query the statement that FPD and FPW can't use mor e than 16Mb memory though!

Also, this article may be helpful:

http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?Wiki~Fpd26OnWin2000~VFP

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[dbMark]

Will you be running FPD or FPW directly on the Windows 2000 server? Or will the data sit on the server and the other workstations access it? If so, then some of these issues may not affect you yet. I think the major issues mentioned here have to do with which OS is running the software, not holding the data. So if you're only upgrading the server at this time, it may not be too bad.

Of course, as you upgrade the workstations you will encounter some of these issues.

I've read some posts mentioning data caching issues when networks have mixed Windows Versions. Also, NT/2K/XP are moving away from the concept of built-in printer ports (LPT1, LPT2) in favor of network/shared printers (\\cpuname\prsharename). DOS is supposedly dying but not for quite some time, but meanwhile it is an agonizing and slow death.