Alan Lewis

Dear Jos: Thanks for your prompt reply. I only understand a fraction of it, though, not being a "system" type of guy. (I try, usually fall short.) After reading your reply a few times, I realize that I actually do not know what a "windows program" IS. I think of windows programs as being things you run from the GUI, that are themselves GUI-fied. I think of DOS as a different world (yes, there's a relation), and DOS programs as things that run from the command line and return output that is DOS-like...

In VDOS: 1. this works fine: fgrep "string" thisfile.txt > output.tmp this does NOT work (pipe thru cut before output): fgrep "string" thisfile.txt | cut -c 7- > output.tmp I can make it work by dividing the operations into 2 lines: fgrep "string" thisfile.txt > output.tmp cut -c 7- output.tmp > output2.tmp ... but, is there some way to make the pipe work? 2. Strangely, some programs (such as above, fgrep) work fine, natively, from the command line or in batch files, whereas others do not. For example,...

Jos: thanks again for your very sophisticated replies. This latest one goes over my head. You write: "unclear to me why you would use an utility like SORT in vDos". I don't understand, except to say that you wonder, perhaps, why I would ever want to SORT things at all? I often have text files with stuff that I want to sort, often on a given column. The old dos sort command has allowed me to do that for many years. It works flawlessly. I think the solution to this is to look for and find a sort program...

Edward: thanks for your reply. I used msconfig and disabled all startup programs; no difference. My vdos still does not run full-screen. It runs in boxes with 2-3" on either side, left and right, on my monitor, and an inch or two at bottom. As for alt-enter: I use it to toggle back and forth because it gives me a slightly bigger box to work with (the "non-vdos" box is slightly bigger, but only slightly, like 1 inch). It does not give me FULL screen, just slightly bigger. For full screen, I have to...

Thanks for the reply. You're right! It is an external program, and I did not have the location of it in my path. However, after correcting this, it still does not work under vdos. What happens when I invoke SORT is that it opens a new dos window (native dos, I guess), which doesn't actually do anything until I control-c out if it. It does not actually do any sorting. Strange. I guess maybe I should look for an alternative sorting program, if I want to sort under vdos, because vdos does not like sort.exe....

A few of my old batch files were bombing-out under vdos, and I just found out why: vdos does not like the SORT command. Is there some way to make the dos SORT command work? Also, unrelated, but are there any plans to make vdos run in a full screen window? I still use win xp for most of my work because it is the last win os that allows full-screen dos. Thanks!

Thanks, Jos, for your very prompt and informative reply. I tried your suggestion...

Everything works fine (THANKS!) except the COPY command. When I COPY a file, vDOS...