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speed dos on xp

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by seadogs

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I have a dos program running on xp - 1.4 ghz 256 MB, plenty of hd. It is much slower than on our 486 with win98. Is there anyway to speed it up? The program is proprietary, calls up several smaller programs. Basically it calls a program that dials out to another phone line and connects with another system and then transfers information while running locally. Any ideas? Since it works fine on the old pc I am guessing it is something with xp but haven't found a ton of places to adjust performance as I am new to it. Thanks!

5 replies

by alpha-male

Unlike earlier versions of Windows, XP is not based on the DOS kernel...it (like Windows 2000) is based on NT. While this makes XP more robust it affects its ability to run legacy applications.
It is effectively emulating DOS and performance will be limited.

The way you can "tweak" performance is through the compatibility wizard...but it's pretty limited. Take a look here for information:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q301911

Delete any spaces in the URL.
Good luck...hope this helps (at least in a "mock DOS" emulation sorta way).

:)

by joe

Is the DOS program running in full window?
If not in the DOS program use the ALT ENTER key combination. DOS programs do run faster in full window. HTH

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