Installation instructions for NT

A reader, John A. Simkiss, III, was kind enough to pass along his method of getting the compiler for The C++ Training Guide to work under NT. The same instructions, with the omission of the setup for the audio/video portion, should work for Who's Afraid of C++?, or for Introduction to C++, as both of those books use the same compiler as The C++ Training Guide does. Please note that I haven't tested these instructions, and since I don't run NT on my home machine, I can't help you if you run into problems. However, it's good to know that it can be done!

Hey Steve,
 
I thought you might want to know that both the CD audio/video & the compiler/programs *DO* run under NT4.0 workstation.  If you want to add instructions to your web page on how to do it, here's a pretty good start for you.
 

The following portion of the instructions are applicable only to The C++ Training Guide, not to the other books

Run the "Setup.exe" file from the CD-Rom to copy the audio video configuration files to the NT system hard drive.  Unfortunately, the setup does not put a shortcut on the desktop nor add to the startup menus.  Thus the user needs to create a shortcut to x:\CPP\APCPP\APCPP.EXE, where "x" is the CD drive letter.  The system must be rebooted to enable the video configurations to take effect.  The install MAY or MAY NOT need to be run while the user is logged in as Administrator or in an account with administrative privileges.  I can't say that it's not necessary, because I was logged in as administrator, but my best guess is that it is NOT required to be admin (with 75% certainty).  Double click the shortcut to run the audio/video portion of the disk.
 

The following portion of the instructions should be applicable to all of the books listed above, except that you won't have to worry about djgpp.lnk if you don't have The C++ Training Guide

The instructions on your Web page for setting up the compiler are right on for NT except for *two* things.  But before we get to them, the user should drop to DOS and run the
 
xcopy d:\djgpp c:\djgpp command to get started.  Also the

d:
cd\
copysamp c:\whos, where "whos" is only an example should be run.

And the "mknorm.bat" and "djgpp.lnk" files should then be put in their appropriate locations, just as for 95.

Now for some differences between 95 and NT.

#1. There are 5 lines beginning with "set djgpptmp=c:", which need to be added to the autoexec.bat file in Windows 95.

 
#2  NT doesn't use the autoexec.bat and config.sys files.  It has a substitute pair of files called autoexec.nt and config.nt that are used to initialize DOS programs and can be used to initialize DOS sessions too.  There are multiple copies of these files scattered around the system (3 on mine).  The pair in the C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32 folder is the right pair to edit.  The config.nt is pretty straight forward.  The only real change is to up the files=20 default to files=30.  The autoexec.nt is a bit trickier, but only in that the 5 lines to be added need to be appended to the end of the file to function properly.  There are 3 commands + the echo off line already in autoexec.nt:

REM Install CD ROM extensions
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\mscdexnt.exe 
REM Install network redirector (load before dosx.exe)
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\redir 
REM Install DPMI support
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\dosx 
 
These are the commands that need to run prior to the 5 lines to be added.  I deleted the echo off, so I could see what the hell was going on.  The final trick, which is very important and NOT at all obvious is to realize that a shortcut to DOS via COMMAND.COM should be set up as opposed to via CMD.EXE, which is the standard NT method of DOS access.  CMD.EXE doesn't run the autoexec.nt nor the config.nt files so it is absolutely essential to set up a shortcut for COMMAND.COM file, which once again is in the C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32 folder.  There's at least one more copy lurking around so be sure to get the one in C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32.  Double click to run the shortcut and drop to DOS.  "Exit" gets the user back to NT.  BTW, the batch file method works too if its specified in the properties dialog box for COMMAND.COM, just like 95.  And none of the defaults in the properties boxes need to be changed.
 
The go32-v2 command should now work & its not necessary to reboot after changes to the autoexec.nt and config.nt files, although any changes made while a command.com window is open won't change that window.


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