billyball

Never even heard of Dosbox until your post! Have downloaded and fiddled with same. Have succeeded in getting ancient Cobol to compile. Wow!! Plenty of bugs to find, no doubt - BUT!! - hope has returned!! Many thanks to Glen9999 for your input. Will post again after further tinkering.

I have a Microsoft V4.0 Cobol compiler with which I write code to run my small business with. This software dates from 1990, but no excuses needed - it fulfils our needs! My problem is that having moved on from a DOS environment, it has been in turn installed on Windows 95, then Windows 98, now Windows XP. It worked fine on the first three, i.e. compiled successfully and trouble free from the source codes fed to it, but in its current XP environment, is driving me mad. I am not an expert on computers, and have learned more or less only what I have needed to keep operational. I cannot upgrade to a "new" Cobol, because there ain't a Microsoft one, and all other proprietory versions cost a fortune. Also all current versions of Windows should run older software, I believe. All work on Cobol is done in a cmd window. The correct environment is then set up via a batch file. I usually write and amend code using the Programmers Work Bench utility, which fires up without a problem. Executable files can be created from within the PWB; sometimes the process works, other times not. The failures present the dreaded error message - see below. Executables can also be created using the "Cobol" command, with or without filenames etc. Currently attempts to load "Cobol" also result in the dreaded error message. The really annoying thing is that sometimes using both the PWB and Cobol is trouble-free, other times resulting in failure. Failure sometimes results in me messing about with PWB options. Sometimes this works, other times - like now - no change. My setup is obviously hit-and-miss, but where? The dreaded error message is "The Application Program Interface (API) entered will only work in Microsoft Operating System/2 mode". What do I need to do to pacify the beast? All suggestions appreciated.