Clipper 5.2 and blinker 5.10 hangs win windows 7

[david....@dirconsulting.com]

We have a clipper application that has run fine on Windows XP for years. Being forced to upgrade to Windows 7 32bit, the application run but will hang inconsistently but regularly. It usually happens after running a long process when the summary report is displayed. Users that enter data consistently do not get the hang up.

clipper 5.2e
Blinker 5.10
Turned off all power saving and sleep functions.
We have set the memory settings on the shortcut and set compatibility settings.

Any help would be appreciated.

[dlzc]

Dear david....:

On Thursday, May 22, 2014 2:39:01 PM UTC-7, david....@dirconsulting.com wrote:
> We have a clipper application that has run fine
> on Windows XP for years. Being forced to upgrade
> to Windows 7 32bit,

Windows 7 64-bit Professional works fine too, if you download "Virtual PC" from M$. This installs essentially 32-bit Windows XP as a virtual machine on your computer. Something like this for Win 8, but not clear to me yet how to do that. Also, DOSbox is freeware, and many people have good success.

> the application run but will hang inconsistently
> but regularly. It usually happens after running
> a long process when the summary report is
> displayed. Users that enter data consistently do
> not get the hang up.

Recommend you review these search results.
windows 7 32-bit hangs ntvdm site:microsoft.com

Clipper was a CPU cycle hog. I am not sure update to 5.2e fixed this. If it did, and you used some other method, there may be some conflict.

Do you have any wait states programmed into your "long process", like calls to inkey(), or inkey(0.1) at some infrequent spots?

Have you reviewed this thread?
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.clipper/9Sr6uA1cq1s/SjtoymcQje4J

David A. Smith

[EDS]

David,
For years, it makes sense to build systems with Clipper. Compile in Harbour (free), make codes, follow the same way, but without the limitations. 32-bit native application, usually performed on 64 bits. Then use native functions: FTP, email, dll third USB printing, etc..

I am an expert, if you want I can make this migration, giving your system and the new ready environment. Contact me private.

[Massimo Belgrano]

Download http://harbour.github.io/ and recompilie using hbmk2

[frank van nuffel]

hi,

excerpt from http://users.telenet.be/_o_ceans
follow 'diving a little deeper' link and look for ChangeLog section
2014-02-21

"Windows 7 ntvdm (32bit of course) has some behaviour changes over the xp
version; starting cmd.exe now by default inherits the active environment
whereas xp's didn't; also, on multi-core processors it is mandatory to
dedicate the process on either one of the cores at a time; use the /affinity
flag with cmd.exe /c start ...; lastly, some programs in the (o)ceans build
toolchain might require a customized DEP configuration in order to prevent
'the NTVDM has stopped working' error; with all these measures invigorated
the build process does just fine, but until a build tool makeover no more
than 1 core is active at a given time (this might change in the future)"

perhaps, limiting the session to 1 core only will help

best regards,

lohen

<david.dobson@dir...com> schreef in bericht
news:4d6d082f-a5b3-46d8...@googlegroups.com...

[petar....@gmail.com]

Thanks for your post.

On the following page:
http://www.markwilson.co.uk/blog/2005/01/troubleshooting-ms-dos-application.htm
there is a solution explained.

"Every now and then, the application will hang - seemingly randomly
...
...
With that in mind we re-ran the test program with processor affinity set to use only CPU0 in Task Manager. The results were the same as disabling hyper-threading - no NTVDM hang!"

If Clipper program hangs on Win 7, 8, 8.8 with multi core processors (4+ cores), the solution is to set affinity to only one core. No hangs anymore.

Petar

[timec...@gmail.com]

would you help me migrate from clipper 5.3 to xharbour personal.
actually, we have converted about 90% but some issues still persists.
1. screen flickers when mouse is navigated

2. screen shakes when new data is displayed at a location where data is already existing

3. chr(16), chr)17)....does not get displayed after converting with xharbour...

4. HOW TO DISPLAY .JPG FILE IN CLIPPER 5.3 APPLICATION (.prg files)

[dlzc]

Dear timec...:

On Friday, December 5, 2014 5:24:59 AM UTC-7, timec...@gmail.com wrote:
...

> 1. screen flickers when mouse is navigated
>
> 2. screen shakes when new data is displayed at a
> location where data is already existing

This is really odd. Have your video drivers been updated to current?

> 3. chr(16), chr)17)....does not get displayed
> after converting with xharbour...

This is CODEPAGE settings. Review the xharbour newsgroup for discussions of what codepages display these characters correctly. ►◄

> 4. HOW TO DISPLAY .JPG FILE IN CLIPPER 5.3
> APPLICATION (.prg files)

David A. Smith

[david....@dirconsulting.com]

Yes. The screen that seems to lockup the most is after the user runs a report, it is on screen waiting for them to print the report. So there is an inkey waiting for the user to view or print the report.

is there another way to inkey without using inkey, so that i can fix this issue?

[dlzc]

Dear david....:

You have to figure out what the root cause of this is. Sorry.

It could be another program has stolen all keyboard input, or has installed itself in the "keybaord interrupt stack":
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/70295-63-every-minues-lose-focus-application
... for similar behaviors.

It may have something to do with your printer driver.

It may have something to do with the patch you installed to allow Clipper code to run on a faster CPU:
http://www.the-oasis.net/ftpmaster.php3?content=ftppatch.htm

And at some point, you just need to move to (x)Harbour (or X#), and stop mucking around with Clipper.

Have you changed this wait look to use inkey(0.1) or similar?
http://www.oohg.org/cl53/ng61b6e.html

David A. Smith

[mgk1]

I use a program called TameDos to accommodate DOS programs that take all the CPU for some functions such as keyboard. Find it at tamedos.com