Australian PC World - Slow return from DOS Mode

Slow return from DOS Mode

In PC World of July 1996 in the Help Screen (page 172), you ran an article "Tips for DOS fun and games in Windows 95". It was a pity that you didn't come up with an item 8, where you could have told me and probably many others the way to fix this problem: the types of programs which you rightly suggest in item 5 should be set up in MS-DOS mode through the Advanced option in Shortcut Properties.
From Windows 95 they open on a full screen (if clicked so) almost immediately, but it is a different thing on exit. [I'm concerned about] the obnoxious waste of time that the system takes when automatically re-booting the system and reloading Windows 95 after exit from a program in DOS mode, considering you were originally in Windows 95.
Other programs which are marked "suggest MS-DOS mode as necessary" in the Properties--Advanced window do start and exit in Windows 95. I thought of a possible batch file in the autoexec file to command a straight-back-to-Windows 95 situation, to add to the Properties--Advanced window. I tried, but it did not work. Maybe it was not written properly?
As a new reader of your magazine (which I find very helpful) and at the young age of 64, every new program is certainly a challenge. I have asked around and nobody seems to know a way out! Could you help?
- Eraldo Ferfoglia

Sorry, Eraldo, but there is no way out. When you run a program in DOS mode, you're running in DOS only. It's just like the old days, when you might have exited Windows 3.x to run a program you couldn't run in a DOS window. Many more programs run in a DOS Window under Windows 95, but if you find one that doesn't, and has to be run in DOS mode, you essentially have to re-boot the system after it has finished. It's safer this way, because programs that demand the whole system may do all manner of antisocial things to your memory, and you want to wipe all that before continuing.
- Neale Morison

Category: Win95
Issue: Sep 1996
Pages: 154