Useing Display.sys in Windows 2000

[randycarter2001]

I'm trying to run an old CAD software program on a windows 2000 machine. There is a problem of garbled text (aka hieroglyphics) while the program is in the drawing mode caused by EGA modes not being supported on newer VGA cards.

The manufacturer has provided a fix for Windows 95 and 98 and it has worked on every machine I've tried after locating the files and making the appropriate path changes.

CONFIG.SYS add the line:
device=c:\dos\display.sys con=(ega,437,1)

AUTOEXEC.BAT add the lines:
mode con cp prep=((437)c:\dos\ega.cpi)
mode con cp select=437

Since I don't understand exactly what the above lines do, I'm unable to put the fix in Windows 2000 or XP. When I search for DISPLAY.SYS in windows 2000 I can't find it, but I did find EGA.CPI. There is a mention of using SETVER.EXE to log an old version of DISPLAY.SYS in the instructions.

Is there a way to set up these changes in Windows 2000? And as a bonus be able to implement them in Windows XP?

 

[Nodsu]

In 2k/XP you have the config.nt and autoexec.nt files in windows\system32
Display.sys is a very low-level driver and I'm pretty sure it doesn't work in Windows NT and above.

You could try running your software in an emulator like DosBox or Bochs where you can run true DOS on a "standard" virtual PC.

 

[randycarter2001]

But the DISPLAY.SYS file is still missing from the hard disk.
Can I use just any DISPLAY.SYS from any version of DOS or WIN9X?
If it is on the WIN2000 CD where do I find it?
Will WIN2000 use the EGA.CPI without the DISPLAY.SYS?

 

[Nodsu]

You cannot use the display.sys driver. It is a hardware-level DOS driver and will most certainly not work in Windows NT. The ega.cpi file is always used when Windows NT runs a console program in full screen.

If your current ega.cpi doesn't have the right fonts, then you can replace it with something else. Plenty of instructions on how to do that on the internet.