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Printing from DOS within Win98SE

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by cornishman

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Starting Win98 in MSDOS mode and using QBASIC.EXE to run any QBASIC program containing the command LPRINT causes the computer to hang if QBASIC.EXE is on the the hard drive. I have tried running it with QBASIC.EXE in directory (Folder) DOS, in directory QB (these have always been present) and also with QBASIC.EXE freshly copied from the floppy disk onto the C: drive. If I run QBASIC.EXE from the A: drive all is well and printer works OK but run from the hard drive, execute command: LPRINT and the PC just hangs. Getting task manager up when this happens gives 'msqsrv32 not responding'. This has always worked before a virus got into the PC (cleared with Norton)and I don't really want to reformat - would a Windows reinstall be worth trying?

3 replies

by shanghai sam

If Win98 is actually started in MS-DOS mode (Start, Shutdown, Restart in MS-DOS mode), you will not have access to msgsvr32 or the task manager; so the problem you describe is happening when you are in an MS-DOS Window rather than when you are in MS-DOS mode (though perhaps a full-screen Window). If when you run QBASIC.EXE from the A: drive you have booted from a diskette, you actually are in MS-DOS mode, so one fix may be to run that QBASIC program in MS-DOS mode rather than in an MS-DOS window. You can force MS-DOS mode on the program by adjusting the properties of it's shortcut. Launching the program would then quickly reboot to MS-DOS, and exiting the program whould quickly reboot back to Windows. For instructions and suggestions, search the knowledgebase at
http://support.micrososoft.com for Article ID Q134400, "General Tips for Using MS-DOS Mode". When starting a program in MS-DOS mode, all other running programs will be closed.

It may be possible to get the program to print in an MS-DOS window, but you would probably need to disable MS-DOS spooling and Windows spooling in the advanced properties of the printer driver, and this would remove the ability of Windows programs to return to edit mode or exit while spooling any job to that printer.

By the way, the Message Server is the Windows 9x error handler, and it will stop responding rather than explain itself if it gets a message that it does not understand. In that event, the fault is not so much in the Message Server as in whatever program it was that caused the event that msgsvr32 is failing to interpret.

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