Preventing DOS program from minimizing

[Matta]

Greetings !

Recently I transferred POS application from DOS computer to WinXP machine because I've changed printers which are now USB . I run app in full screen.

My problem is that POS application minimize to taskbar when I give command to print receipt out of it.

I'm using R&R Xbase to "send" receipts to USB printers (that allows me to have local alphabet and other things).

It's annoying and I would like to know how to prevent app to minimize.

If such thing cannot be set, can it be possible to set POS app to maximize back after minimizing ?

BIG thanks in advance !

Edited September 21, 2011 by Matta

[IcemanND]

I can't think of a way to prevent the minimizing, but you could write a Autoit script to watch the window and maximize it if it found it minimized.

[Tripredacus]

Does something appear on the screen during the print? It sounds like another application is taking focus away.

And when you say "full screen" do you mean a maximized window or do you make it full screen with ALT+ENTER?

[Matta]

I can't think of a way to prevent the minimizing, but you could write a Autoit script to watch the window and maximize it if it found it minimized.

To be honest, I'm far for being able to write anything. Don't have any experience at that. Any help you could provide me would be very much appreciated.

Does something appear on the screen during the print? It sounds like another application is taking focus away.

And when you say "full screen" do you mean a maximized window or do you make it full screen with ALT+ENTER?

Nothing appears on the screen but, as I said, R&R XBase or R&R Convert are taking focus when I give order to print receipt. At least, guy who wrote POS program says so. We have to use R&R to solve problem of printing local alphabet letters on receipts, problem that appeared when I transferred application from pure DOS machine to WinXP.

And when I said "full screen", I mean ALT+ENTER full screen.

At the moment I use it windowed but it's tiny compared to full screen (cannot be maximized over entire screen without messing up appearance of application) and it's slower when windowed (letters typing lag a bit, etc.).

[Tripredacus]

So this is still a DOS program... have you tried using DOSBox to run it? I wonder if that would behave differently.

[Joseph_sw]

official dosbox build hasn't get any good support on printing.

try unofficial builds, some has better print support.

most clipper programs doesn't work well on current dosbox either.

[jaclaz]

You can try using nircmd:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html

but it probably won't work.

The "real" solution (provided that when in a window the app "behaves") would be to set the actual Windows to "full screen".

There isn't AFAIK/AFAICR a freeware solution, but since I presume you can spend a few bucks, you may find these handy:

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/dosfon_e.html

They are a set of characters that are the "right size" to allow extending a console windows to "full screen".

Cannot say if there will be problem with the "local alphabet letters" you mentioned.

jaclaz