DOS game crashes XP

DOS game crashes XP
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Subject Author Date
DOS game crashes XP nutso fasst 08-23-2006
---> Re: DOS game crashes XP Roger Abell [MV...08-24-2006
Posted by nutso fasst on August 23, 2006, 5:50 pm
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Hello.

A DOS game downloaded from
http://www.reloaded.org/download/Castle-Wolfenstein/24/

is able to completely lock up Windows XP running on a Duron system. The game
loads, but runs in an extremely fast loop. There is no way to exit the game
gracefully, so I press Alt + Enter to switch from fullscreen to Window mode.
At this point my screen goes black and the keyboard is useless. I must do a
hardware reset.

How is this DOS game able to crash Windows XP?

I found that if I launched the game at a very slow speed with Mo'Slo 4BIZ, I
was able to use Alt + Enter, but instead of having the game appear FROZEN in
a window, it was minimized. I could then close the game while minimized, but
if I pressed Alt + Enter again, Windows locked up with black screen.

Here's an oddity: With game minimized, I opened Task Manager. I saw a new
process appear: wuauclt.exe. According to MS, this is the auto update
process, but I don't have auto update enabled.

How is this DOS game able to crash Windows XP? What would cause wuauclt.exe
to suddenly run?

thx,
nf



Posted by Steven L Umbach on August 23, 2006, 6:05 pm
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The link below may help you in getting your game to work but to get it to
work right you may need to try running it on Windows 98 or such.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/games/expert/durham_og.mspx

If you want to do Windows Updates only manually you could try disabling the
automatic updates service via services.msc.

You may also want to post in an appropriate games newsgroup or forum.

Steve


> Hello.
>
> A DOS game downloaded from
> http://www.reloaded.org/download/Castle-Wolfenstein/24/
>
> is able to completely lock up Windows XP running on a Duron system. The
> game
> loads, but runs in an extremely fast loop. There is no way to exit the
> game
> gracefully, so I press Alt + Enter to switch from fullscreen to Window
> mode.
> At this point my screen goes black and the keyboard is useless. I must do
> a
> hardware reset.
>
> How is this DOS game able to crash Windows XP?
>
> I found that if I launched the game at a very slow speed with Mo'Slo 4BIZ,
> I
> was able to use Alt + Enter, but instead of having the game appear FROZEN
> in
> a window, it was minimized. I could then close the game while minimized,
> but
> if I pressed Alt + Enter again, Windows locked up with black screen.
>
> Here's an oddity: With game minimized, I opened Task Manager. I saw a new
> process appear: wuauclt.exe. According to MS, this is the auto update
> process, but I don't have auto update enabled.
>
> How is this DOS game able to crash Windows XP? What would cause
> wuauclt.exe
> to suddenly run?
>
> thx,
> nf
>
>



Posted by Richard Urban on August 23, 2006, 10:16 pm
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Many DOS games, all DOS games, access the hardware directly. Windows XP will
not allow this. Some of the DOS games will lock up the computer when trying
to access the hardware directly if launched from Windows XP.

Use Windows 98.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!



> Hello.
>
> A DOS game downloaded from
> http://www.reloaded.org/download/Castle-Wolfenstein/24/
>
> is able to completely lock up Windows XP running on a Duron system. The
> game
> loads, but runs in an extremely fast loop. There is no way to exit the
> game
> gracefully, so I press Alt + Enter to switch from fullscreen to Window
> mode.
> At this point my screen goes black and the keyboard is useless. I must do
> a
> hardware reset.
>
> How is this DOS game able to crash Windows XP?
>
> I found that if I launched the game at a very slow speed with Mo'Slo 4BIZ,
> I
> was able to use Alt + Enter, but instead of having the game appear FROZEN
> in
> a window, it was minimized. I could then close the game while minimized,
> but
> if I pressed Alt + Enter again, Windows locked up with black screen.
>
> Here's an oddity: With game minimized, I opened Task Manager. I saw a new
> process appear: wuauclt.exe. According to MS, this is the auto update
> process, but I don't have auto update enabled.
>
> How is this DOS game able to crash Windows XP? What would cause
> wuauclt.exe
> to suddenly run?
>
> thx,
> nf
>
>



Posted by nutso fasst on August 24, 2006, 1:19 am
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> Many DOS games, all DOS games, access the hardware directly. Windows XP
will
> not allow this. Some of the DOS games will lock up the computer when
trying
> to access the hardware directly if launched from Windows XP.

Since all requests for hardware access in a virtual DOS machine produce
exceptions, and it is via these exceptions that Win XP decides what to do
with the request for hardware access, how is it that any DOS program can
lock up Windows XP?

nf



Posted by nutso fasst on August 24, 2006, 1:36 am
If you were  Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options

> Many DOS games, all DOS games, access the hardware directly. Windows XP
will
> not allow this. Some of the DOS games will lock up the computer when
trying
> to access the hardware directly if launched from Windows XP.

Yes, many DOS games access hardware directly, and the NTVDM provides
emulated response for much of this access. If XP locks up when NTVDM can't
respond to attempted access, then, IMHO, something is wrong with XP.

nf



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