WordPerfect 4.2 -- Other Copies Running?

[charlesgoodin]

Thank you for this excellent program.

I am able to successfully run WordPerfect 4.2 on a Windows 10 Home 64-bit computer.

One thing though is when I start the program, I am asked "Are other copies of WordPerfect currently running?  (Y/N)"

I just hit N, because there are no other copies running.  But is there a way to avoid this?

Here is my set-up:

Autoexect.txt:
USE A: A:\
USE C:\WP\ C:\Vdos\WP\
CALL c:\wp\WP
EXIT
@echo OFF

Config.txt:
THEME = 1
WINDOW = -60,180:110
FONT = C:\WINDOWS\FONTS\LUCON
CTRL+V = OFF

Thank you.

Charles Goodin

[Jos]

At startup WP4.2 creates 4 temporary {WP}.xxx files. Those are supposed to be deleted as WP closes, but aren’t. If present at startup, WP wants a confirmation those aren’t of another WP instance running.
I’ll have a look at why WP doesn’t delete those files as it closes…

Jos

[Jos]

Edward Mendelson has a better memory than mine, he reminded me of his same question last year. My answer was:

"I had a look, as I already expected it is related to MSDOS 1.x file management.

Pre MSDOS 2.x programs had to allocate and maintain FCB blocks that were passed on to DOS API (eventually modifying/updating those blocks). In this specific situation WP on exit tries to delete files with the “C:{WP}?.???” mask in a FCB block. vDos doesn’t support FCB file management directly, those calls are more or less translated to file handle equivalents.

For a wildcard FCB “C:{WP}?.???” deletion there are many steps in between to finally get Windows delete the files. Start a FindFirst with that mask, continue with FindNext for each file that satisfies the mask, while deleting the found files. Translating the FCB interface to file handles, then that to Windows search handles. It seems vDos doesn’t use the copy of the original FCB block used for the FindFirst/FindNext operations, instead the original one. More complicated stuff like maintaining a copy of DTA for the delete operations.

Way too much work to try to get this right, only for this antique WP version, sorry.

Jos

[emendelson]

charlesgoodin: perhaps you could start WP 4.2 in a batch file that looks something like this:

wp
del {WP}?.*

This would delete the temporary files after you exit WordPerfect.

[charlesgoodin]

May 24, 2021 14:51:33 GMT 1 emendelson said:

charlesgoodin: perhaps you could start WP 4.2 in a batch file that looks something like this:

wp
del {WP}?.*

This would delete the temporary files after you exit WordPerfect.

Thank you very much for your replies.  I really appreciate it.

I used the following in a batch file called start.bat as suggested:

c:\wp\WP
del c:\wp\{WP}.*

This was modified slightly from what was suggested... and it worked!!!  Now my program starts cleanly with no: "Are other copies of WordPerfect currently running? (Y/N)"

My autoexec.txt file calls the start.bat file as follows:

USE A: A:\
USE C:\WP\ C:\Vdos\WP\
CALL start.bat
rem CALL c:\wp\WP

EXIT

@echo OFF

Thank you again.

Charles