Re: DOS windowed session not working

Ya'll, this was another seen thing on this 'new' Depot serviced mainboard I'm dealing with DOS VDM irregularities in an earlier thread here. On the initial installation of MCP2, I got this error with the as-installed by me OS/2. In that the S\Scitech driver toolset, for the IBM Passport Advantage support, as I've found out, really shouldn't be installed until after you make all the Fix Pack changes, I ignored this find until I finished the key updates.


At the conclusion of the XRC_05 Fix Pack, I then crossed over to SNAP/SE, the IBM supported version. It installed. However, surprise! The exact same deal with a DOS-VDM window and the same message reported here! As I started to debug this, on top of the no CGA memory mode deal, I decided to back out the SE/Snap toolset, revert to VGA, and check this exact issue there. That's when I really noteced something else going wrong here I've not brought up yet, but since the thread is now open I'll jump in.


I noticed that although the Scitech video configuration window did have all the screen font change options and color depth selection, the monitor selection panel was blank. Also, there was no refresh frequency scan rate change offered either! Uhhh ... that's not right either. So in reading the complete installation notes for MCP2 that you can get from the help pane in the troubleshooting, I found out more.


It is a 'known' issue, with 'some' of the IBM Thinkpads, that you may not get either the screen font change, color density, nor the monitor and refresh rate changes in the System video folder! The required fix for this is to install the following line in your CONFIG.SYS file:


    SET VCFG_NO_DDC=TRUE


That per the assistance data, will get you back the control data in the system video screen setup folder. So I went to add that to the CONFIG.SYS file, post-SE/Snap install. SURPRISE! It was actually already in the CONFIG.SYS file. But at this point, I have no idea if it was in ther prior to the addition of the Scitech product, or before it. And at that point, I'm still in this same scenario. I can't run any DSO-VDM window session either. I can open it as FULL SCREEN. I can then shrink that FULL SCREEN to a Window Session byt using the <ALT HOME> technique. It is still running there that way.


But even with that special setting in the CONFIG.SYS file, I have yet to be able to see any monitor selection, nor make any refresh rate change at all in the SYSTEM Video operation. Not good.


I think that was the real prompting that drove me into backing out the Scitech toolset, to check this with plain old VGA. But wait! There's more! There is more than one way to get back to 'VGA". I first told the box to do that with the bootup options. That, however, got me really back to SVGA, the video install mode that was the system determined initial video at 640 density and 256 colors. The DOS-Window Session error prompt was still there!


Well, there is another way to do this. At an OS/2 command session, you can execute the SETVGA option. I booted to a command session with the boot options. I chose that method to get back to VGA. Surprise! This time we were all the way back to what it seems is PLAIN VGA and 640 density at SIXTEEN (16) colors!.


Surprise! Now the DOS-VDM Window Session is running with no more prompt error that is being described here. I re-installed the SE toolset again over that. Surprise! I've not seen the error described here since that time on this R40.


William L. Hartzell wrote: 
Sir:

Alex Taylor wrote:

I recently discovered this weird problem on my laptop.

I cannot open a windowed DOS prompt. If I try, the window starts to open, then it gives the error popup:

    The system does not support this session's video mode in
    a window.

It's just a DOS prompt!  80x25 text.  How can it not support
that video mode?

If I select 'full-screen' from the context menu, I can switch
into the DOS session in fullscreen mode, and it works OK.  But
I want windowed sessions!

This is NOT normal. It only happens on this laptop, which has
two OS/2 partitions that both exhibit this behaviour. Both are
running at XR_C004 level, using a custom SNAP build of SNAP Pro v2.3.1, and have kernel 14.103a.

Could this be a video driver problem? A kernal problem? Or something else?

First try updating the kernel to 14.104a. This is really a video problem. I'd bet that the vDOS driver of SNAP was not built. WAG: Copy one from another machine or unpack SNAPse. System.ini should have these:
display.drv=ifgdi2vm.drv
sdisplay.drv=isgdi2vm.drv



Right now the DOS CGA mode restriction error is more important that this one to me. But since ya'll brought it up, I've tried to contribute here. Sorry for all the words. But that's what it took me to kill even this part of the errors here with my R40.


Mike Luther
.

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