Two questions

[BobDavis]

I've been programming in FP 2.6 DOS for about 25 years and 10+ years before that in dBase II and Foxbase. For about two years I've had a x86 machine running Win7 Pro x86 that was dedicated to Foxpro and another app that won't run in x64. I recently moved FP to another machine running Win10 Pro x86 and have some minor issues:

1. FP randomly loses its preferences, like the MODI COMM window not maximizing and PRG files not compiling. I know when this occurs when the PRG window is small, and "Complile When Saved" and "Save Preferences" are both unchecked. Most of the time it works as expected but I can't find a pattern to this behavior, and it's irritating to be forced to change it several times per day. Also, doing a ^f10 to open the window does not work to save its position. I must drag the small window to the proper maximized size. CONFIG.NT, AUTOEXEC.NT, and CONFIG.FP are all configured exactly the same as in previous machines. Sometimes it'll go a day without losing preferences and then lose it several times within a few minutes.

2. I get remnants of closed windows in some cases, always in a blank area of the screen and never in a browse screen. Doing a CLEAR command in the PRG doesn't remove it. It did not do this in the previous machine but did years ago, IIRC when running XP Mode in Win7 Pro x64. In the photo below the vertical line was the left border of a window I just closed.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Bob,

I don't have any experience of running FPD under recent versions of Windows, but the issue of the code editing window not maximising is a familiar one in VFP. Some years ago I tried to find a solution, and even resorted to posting the problem in this forum. I ended up by just getting into the habit of hitting CTRL+F10 every time I did a MODIFY COMMAND.

Some of the other problems you mentioned might be caused by User Access Control in Windows not allowing files to be created under certain circumstances. This sometimes happens when Foxpro is installed under Program Files, and the development work is done in the Foxpro executable directory or sub-directories. The usual recommendation is to install Foxpro (FPD, FPW or VFP) away from Program Files, such as in a directory directly below the root.

Mike

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Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[Mike Lewis]

By the way, Bob, could I suggest that when you post a question here in the forum, that you give it a meaningful title: one that gives us an indication of the nature of the problem. This is important because if other people have a similar problem, it will help them find the topic. It also helps forum regulars when skimming the list of topics and looking for questions to try to answer.

Just a suggestion.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[BobDavis]

Thanks for the tips, Mike. My Foxpro folder and its subs have never been in \Program Files, but rather in their own folder (C:\FP). Tables and PRG/FXP are in subs (\FP\FILES and \FP\PRG), with the CONFIG.FP by itself in \FP\CONFIG). CONFIG.FP location is specified as such in CONFIG.NT. Is Preferences stored in the FOXPRO.OVR or FOXUSER.DBF file, or somewhere else? Again, this configuration has been used for years (decades, actually) in many machines and Windows versions.

The MODI COMM maximize issue is apparently tied to Preferences, as when it pops up small my Preferences (Compile When Saved and Save Preference) become unchecked. Thus, I must go into Preferences and make changes repeatedly to get it to auto-compile. It isn't doing this often now but it pops up enough to be irritating. In the past this problem seemed to disappear although like you I never found a specific solution. BTW, when I use ^f10 it never remembers the maximized position, as only dragging the small window to maximized size will do it, and if I don't change Preferences back to their proper settings it will never pop up maximized.

 

[Chris Miller]

In VFP preferences of tools->options are partly saved in foxuser.dbf, but also in the windows registry (the 32bit=x86 branch, of course).

Not sure config.nt will help you with anyting in Windows since Vista. config.fp (config.fpw for VFP) is still VFP territory and continues to work as is. If you specify the file as command line parameter it's not important to change fp extension to fpw, but a config.fpw in home is what VFP would take into account automatically, helping with anything you can define in that file.

Many use a per project config.fpw in the project home, so, for example, you can let it set the VFP9.exe titlebar caption to the application name, which later also applies for the exe built.

Chriss

 

[BobDavis]

In case this may help one of the 14 programmers worldwide still working in FPD 2.6, I seem to have stumbled onto a fix for Problem #1 (FP losing Preferences). I had CONFIG.FP and one PRG/FXP pair housed in \FP\CONFIG. This PRG/FXP is launched by all other programs early on and contained basic info used by all the others (SET commands, etc.). I moved these two files to the folder housing all other such files (\FP\PRG).

CONFIG.FP was moved to the FP root (\FP) and AUTOEXEC.NT adjusted accordingly (set foxprocfg=c:\fp\config.fp). I'm not sure which move made the difference, although I suspect it was relocating CONFIG.FP, but I haven't lost Preferences or had to manually maximize my PRG windows once since that time (almost one week). The \FP\CONFIG folder was deleted and is no longer used. It worked fine in the old way for a decade or two under WinXP, Win7, and probably earlier OS versions, but Win10 didn't like the arrangement for some reason.