External programs don't launch from Clarion program

[kirby]

I have an old program written in Clarion.  Everything works perfectly until the point where it calls an external "reporter.exe" program to run a report.  That external program, which is included in the directory with the main program, does not run.  The main program displays its "Running report" screen briefly and then returns as if the external call were just skipped.

Everything in this program is hard-coded, including directory paths.  I know the path is correct because if the program isn't located in "C:\Auction\" then it can't find the database files.  This is the same folder which contains "reporter.exe", which I can run separately.  The main program does pass some parameters to it, mainly whether to print to the screen or the printer.

Any ideas?  I need to get this up and going ASAP for this guy and vDos is the only program I've found so far which even runs every other part of the old program perfectly and prints without it taking 30 seconds per page.

[Jos]

Could you run vDos with the log option (….vDos.exe /log), and submit the generated vDos.log file.

Jos

[kirby]

The screen flashes by quickly so I hadn't noticed before, but on the bottom it says "Packed file is corrupt".  Other DOS emulators will run the external file, but don't print correctly, crash occasionally, take forever to print or have some other issue.

[Jos]

vDos should detect faulty EXECPACKed executables, but misses some files. You could try to unpack the program with attached DOS program UNP.EXE. As a bonus the program will load faster.
The next vDos version will support all EXECPACKed files.

Jos

Attachments:

unp.doc (29.08 KB)

unp.exe (20.34 KB)

[kirby]

vDos.log (2.5 KB))Okay, I realized I had been using vDosPlus, which is what gave me the quickly flashing screen.  Sorry about that.  I have a ton of these programs installed trying to find one that works.

The log file worked beautifully and even I could easily see in the log that the problem is that it tries to call c:\command.com to run the external report.  That file, of course, doesn't exist in Windows 10.  Is there anything I can do about that?

EDIT: I may have jumped the gun on that diagnosis.  It looks like it is using command.com to call rrun.exe, which maybe is running.

A little more info, I went straight to that report and tried running it 3 times, then exited (which is pretty evident in the log).  The screen "flashed" quickly sometimes, but displayed nothing.

[Jos]

vDos traps any access to ….command.com. You can for instance do a "DIR command.com" at the vDos command prompt, and it will show up.

I didn’t find a call of reporter.exe in the log, the problem will still be that it’s packed by a buggy EXECPACK, and you need to unpack that file.

Jos

[kirby]

It's actually running RRUN, which I believe, based on the screen I get when I run reporter, is calling reporter. I may be wrong. This software was written in 1990 and I wasn't the one who wrote it, so I might be jumping to some conclusions here.

I did just run a test and changed the autoexec to call the rrun command found in the log directly. If I changed "O=P" to "O=S" it printed to the screen perfectly. If I left it as "O=P" and removed the Exit command it did bring up the Windows Print dialog briefly before blue screening. After a reboot I tried again and it worked.

So, I can make this work. I just need 2 different icons on the Desktop to run the program using 2 different autoexec files, one for the main program, one for just this report. Is that possible?

[kirby]

Actually I can just do this with 2 different "installs" of the program, so I have a workaround to get him going again. Thank you for your help. It was your suggestion to make the log file that actually got me what I needed. You have no idea how much I appreciate a speedy response in today's world.