From:	billlanam AT california DOT com (Bill Lanam)
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: Launching Windows progs from a C program (in a dos box)
Date:	Thu, 12 Dec 1996 05:51:30 GMT
Message-ID:	<32af9581.17674700@seashell.california.com>
References:	<850235087 DOT 26429 DOT 0 AT firewall DOT tertio DOT co DOT uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host:	slip-173.california.com
Lines:	47
To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway:	from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

On Tue, 10 Dec 1996 16:27:10 GMT, alord AT tertio DOT co DOT uk (Andrew Lord) wrote:

>Pity me! I've just spent the last two days struggling with Turbo C++. 
>
>Basically I have a C program which is just a wrapper around some system calls. 
>Depending on the results of the system calls it does various other calls.
>
>(I didn't feel masochistic enough to do some DOS batch programming and TCL uses
>up too many system resources. There are some one off solutions for this but I
>wanted something that can be maintained by anyone in the team without a steep
>learning curve)
>
>Anyway, coming from a UNIX background I started off using djgpp and all was well
>until one of the programs I wanted to run was a Windows one. 
>
>So it was goodbye gnu ,hello Borland until I discovered the stupid package has
>lots of calls documented that don't actually work under Windows 3.11 (spawnl to
>be exact).
>
>I'm desperate to ge back to "proper" C but I have a hunch that I can't launch
>this program from within djgpp can I? (The C program will also be running from
>Windows).
>
>Someone please say "YES its really easy..."
>
>Thanks muchly,
>
>Andy L.
>
>
No it is not easy.  Microsoft has a couple of utilities that are part of their
MASM package, one is a windows program that must be started before you try to
run a windows program from DOS (started from windows). The other is a DOS
program which communicates with the windows program to launch a windows
program either asynchronously in which case the DOS box and the windows
program are running simultaneously, or sunchronously in which case the DOS box
waits for the windows program to finish.

I have no idea as to whether or not Microsoft will supply you those two
programs upon request without having to buy MASM.

I believe that Microsoft isn't the only one who did it (I don't even know if
they made those utilities or bought them), but I have no idea where else you
can get them or similar programs.

	Bill Lanam

- Raw text -