About this page | Emergency troubleshooting | Basic keystrokes | Printing and faxing under Windows | Add WP to the Explorer right-click menu | Set environment variables | Customize WPDOS memory and window settings | Windows Me compatibility | Maximize memory in WPDOS | Insufficient file handles | Using the Windows clipboard | Installation problems solved | Boot Windows to the DOS prompt | Create expanded memory (EMS) under Windows 95 or 98 | Create expanded memory (EMS) under Windows Me | Enable expanded memory (EMS) under Windows NT, 2000, or XP | Use up to 64MB of extended memory (XMS) | Enabling the mouse | Force WPDOS to start in full-screen mode | Sound card conflicts | Windows icons | List Files screen and large drives | WPDOS 6.x Directory Tree locks up with drive C: | WPDOS on Windows networks | Home page
Note: If you use Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP, see also this site's separate WPDOS under Windows NT, 2000, and XP page. If you use Windows Me, see also this site's separate WPDOS under Windows Me page. The page you are now reading contains material applicable to all versions of Windows, but you may also need the troubleshooting and installation advice on the special Windows NT, 2000, and XP page or the special Windows Me page.
WordPerfect 5.1 and 6.x for DOS can be used without difficulty under all versions of Windows, and with the FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS file systems, although later releases of 6.x are somewhat more compatible than early ones. This page includes suggestions follow for making WPDOS and Windows more compatible with each other, and for maximizing the performance of WPDOS under Windows. Unless noted, all these suggestions apply to Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0, 2000 Professional, Millennium Edition (Windows Me), and XP. They probably apply, with minor modifications, to Windows 3.1 and to the Windows 3.1 subsystem of OS/2. (A user-contributed set of suggestions for running WordPerfect under OS/2 Warp is on a separate page.)
Absolute beginners may want to read this site's step-by-step instructions for installing WPDOS under Windows. If you already have WPDOS running under Windows, you may ignore those instructions.
I recommend that every WPDOS user study the recommendations in the separate page on customizing the WPDOS shortcut. Major improvements in speed and performance can be achieved by following the suggestions offered here.
You may also want to read separate pages about opening WordPerfect files in Microsoft Word, and about converting Microsoft Word files for use in WordPerfect.
Note: A separate page about WPDOS under Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP should be read by anyone who wants to use WPDOS under any of those operating systems. A separate page on Windows Me compatibility should be read by everyone who wants to use WPDOS under Windows Me. Information about WPDOS 5.1 on Windows CE handheld devices may also be found on a separate page.
If WPDOS ignores any settings that you change, or if you can't select the settings that you want: You probably used a CD-R or CD-RW disk in order to copy your WPDOS files between computers (in other words, you copied files to a CD-R or CD-RW disk on your old machine, and then copied the files from that disk to your new machine). To fix the resulting problem, you must change the way Windows reads the newly copied files. Any file that is copied to your hard disk from a CD-R or CD-RW disk is marked "read-only," which means it can't be changed until you remove the "read-only" setting, and WPDOS can't make changes in its settings files. To fix the problem, open Windows Explorer to the directory into which you copied the files from your CD-R or CD-RW; select (highlight) all the files that you copied (you can select all the files by clicking once in the list and pressing Ctrl-A); right-click anywhere in the highlighted list of files; choose Properties from the pop-up menu; clear the checkbox next to "Read-only"; click OK.
Special note about WPDOS 6.x under any Windows version: Under any Windows version, you may be able to improve WPDOS's performance, and avoid obscure problems, by adding the command-line switch /NS (no sound) to your WPDOS 6.x shortcut, or, if you launch WP from a batch file, by adding the switch to the line that runs WP. (Help! What's a shortcut?) You may also improve stability with WPDOS 6.1 or 6.2 by also adding the similar switch /DU (don't use upper memory blocks). For details, see the general note on customizing the WPDOS window below. These switches are not needed, and should not be used, with WPDOS 5.x.
If WPDOS 6.x crashes or won't start, under any Windows version: Some web sites recommend that you increase DOS memory under Windows by opening your SYSTEM.INI file and adding, under the [386enh] heading, the line LocalLoadHigh=1. On some systems, this line prevents WPDOS 6.x from starting; the program does not fail with an error message but simply does not run at all. On other systems, it causes WPDOS 6.x to crash with an error message. If you are having trouble launching WPDOS 6.x under Windows, check your SYSTEM.INI file, and remove this line if you find it.
If WPDOS causes an "illegal instruction" error message under any Windows version: You can usually improve the stability of WPDOS 5.1 and 6.x by adjusting expanded memory settings. You will need to make different adjustments under Windows 95 and 98, under Windows Me, and under Windows NT, 2000, and XP. Some versions of WPDOS manage memory badly under Windows; if you have WPDOS 6.0 or 6.0a, you should try to find a later version, such as 6.0b, 6.1, or 6.2. Some very old versions of WPDOS (for example, WPDOS 4.2) and related products will not run at all under Windows Me.
To toggle a WPDOS session (or any DOS program) between full-screen and windowed mode, press Alt-Enter.
To switch from a WPDOS session to the Windows desktop or to another open application, press Alt-Tab.
To minimize or resize a WPDOS window (or any DOS window), press Alt-Spacebar and select from the dropdown menu.
Instructions for making these changes semi-permanent may be found elsewhere on this site.
A separate page provides information on printing and faxing from WPDOS under Windows. It includes instructions for printing from WPDOS to printers connected by a USB cable.
When you select a file in Windows Explorer, you can bring up a "context menu" by right-clicking on the item or pressing Shift-F10. If you want to add an item to this menu that will open the selected file in WPDOS, carefully read and follow the following instructions. If you fail to read the instructions very carefully, the procedure will not work. If you do not understand the instructions - really understand them - then stop right here and go no further!! You must understand the part of the instructions in which you must type in the name of your WPDOS directory!!!
First copy the following lines into Windows Notepad or some other text editor:
REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\WPDOS] @="&WordPerfect" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\WPDOS\command] @="c:\\wp62\\wp.com /w-*,* /r %1"
Before you save this as a file, very carefully edit the last line so that it contains the directory in which your copy of WPDOS really is, and that it contains the name of a file that really exists. Note that the file contains double-backslashes ( \\ ) instead of the single backslash \ used in ordinary DOS paths. In other words, if your copy of WPDOS is E:\WP51\WP.EXE, then you must change the line shown above to read something like:
@="e:\\wp51\\wp.exe /w-*,* /r %1"If you use WPDOS6.x, you should change /w-*,* to read /w-*,*,* and of course you may add any other command-line switches that you use when running WPDOS.
Now, and only now, save the file in a convenient place under a name such as WPContextEdit.reg. The only part of the filename that really matters is the .reg extension. The file must have the extension .reg or the procedure will not work!! (If you use Windows Notepad, enter the name, with the .reg extension, in quotation marks! If you do not use the quotation marks, Notepad will save the file under the name WPContextEdit.reg.txt and this procedure will not work!!!)
Now find the WPContextEdit.reg file that you just created; right-click on it; choose Merge from the context menu; answer Yes to any prompt. You should now find a "WordPerfect" menu item on the right-click context menu of any file.
If you later wish to remove this new menu item, follow a similar procedure to create a file that looks like this and has a name such as RemoveWPMenuItem.reg:
REGEDIT4
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\WPDOS]
After saving the file, right-click on it; choose Merge from the context menu; answer Yes to any prompt. The "WordPerfect" menu item will no longer appear on Explorer's context menu.
If you want to specify whether WPDOS opens in full-screen or windowed mode, use Windows Explorer to navigate to your WPDOS directory (typically something like c:\wp51 or c:\wp62 or something similar); right-click on WP.COM (if you have such a file; right-click on WP.EXE if you don't), choose Properties, go to the Screen tab, and select either Full-Screen or Windowed; click OK, and close the Windows Explorer window. If you have both WP.COM and WP.EXE in your directory, perform this step on both files. If you don't see WP.COM or WP.EXE, then you need to tell Windows to display file extensions; see the procedure described elsewhere on this site. (Note for experts only: If you use a batch file to launch WP, you may need to add a line to the batch file that changes the current directory to the directory that contains WP.COM or WP.EXE before the batch file launches WP; the batch file can of course change to any other directory after that step if you prefer.)
WordPerfect's memory and other settings can be controlled most easily with command-line "switches," which are abbreviations appended to the WPDOS command line, like this (for WPDOS 6.x)
c:\wp62\wp.com /R /DL /W-*,*,* /NS
or this (for WPDOS 5.1+):
c:\wp51\wp.com /R /DL /W-*,*
Each of these examples launches WPDOS; adds speed and saves memory by loading much of the program into expanded memory, or in WPDOS 6.x, extended memory if available, expanded memory if extended is not available (/R); does not load the program launcher that allows WPDOS 5.1+ and 6.x to launch its fax software and font installer (/DL); uses as much conventional, expanded, and extended memory as possible (/W-*,*,* for WPDOS 6.x or /W-*,* for WPDOS 5.1); and turns off the sound feature in WPDOS 6.x (/NS) a feature which causes many obscure problems when left on (and which does not work under Windows anyway).
Important notes about the /DL switch: If you include the /DL switch, WPDOS 5.1+ and 6.x will have more memory for documents, but much less memory available for running DOS applications when you "Shell to DOS" or "Go to DOS." You should omit the /DL switch if you find that it prevents features such as the WPDOS 6.x font installer from working within WP itself. Also, under Windows 2000 and XP, you probably should omit the /DL parameter if you find that it prevents the "compose" feature from working ("compose" is the feature in which you press Ctrl-2 and then two characters to create a symbol, as, for example, Ctrl-1, then L, then -, to insert the Pound Sterling symbol).
A
command-line switch may also be used to run a macro immediately when WPDOS
starts up, using the syntax /M-macroname to launch the macro; add
this switch to any others that you may want to use. A list
of available switches may be found in an appendix to the WPDOS manual, and you
may view a summary by entering
These switches may be used on the command line, or in batch files, but if you have any switches that you want to use every time you run WPDOS, it is more convenient to add them to the "environment" so that they run automatically. The following techniques add switches to the environment under different versions of Windows:
DOS, Windows 95, and Windows 98: Using Notepad or EDIT.EXE, edit your C:\Autoexec.bat file to add command-line switches. Add a line to the file (above the line that says Win if you have such a line) that reads like this, using the switches that you prefer:
SET WP=/R /DL /W-*,* /M-macroname
Note: See the important notes on the /DL switch above.
Of course, replace macroname with the real name of any macro you want WPDOS to run when it starts up, or omit /M-macroname entirely if you do not run a macro when the program starts up. Under WPDOS 5.1, use /W-*,* but under WPDOS 6.x, use /W-*,*,* and /NS
Restart your computer after you modify the file. At a DOS prompt, enter SET to see whether your WP variable is in use. If you do not see your variable on the list, repeat the steps, checking your typing carefully, until the variable appears after rebooting.
If you do not already have a C:\Autoexec.bat file, create one in a text editor like Notepad and add this line to the empty file. If, after restarting your computer, Windows does not start up, and you boot to a DOS prompt, add a new line to the file as the last line, and place the single word WIN on that line.
Important: If you normally use the equals sign in command-line switches (as in /NT=4), you must use a hyphen instead (as in /NT-4) when specifying switches with the SET WP= command. The SET command will fail if it has any equals sign other than the one immediately after SET WP=. You should probably use the hyphen instead of the equals sign in all instances for safety.
Windows Me: See the section on setting environment variables on this site's separate Windows Me page.
Windows NT, 2000, XP. Vista: Use Start/Find or Start/Search to locate your Autoexec.nt file, typically found in C:\Windows\System32 or C:\WinNT\System32. (Help! I can't find my Autoexec.nt file!) Using a text editor like Notepad or EDIT.EXE, add a line like this at the bottom of the file.
SET WP=/R /DL /W-*,* /M-macroname
Note: See the important notes on the /DL switch above.
Of course, replace macroname with the real name of any macro you want WPDOS to run when it starts up, or omit /M-macroname entirely if you do not run a macro when the program starts up. Under WPDOS 5.1, use /W-*,* but under WPDOS 6.x, use /W-*,*,* and /NS
Restart your computer after you modify the file. At a DOS prompt, enter SET to see whether your WP variable is in use. If you do not see your variable on the list, repeat the steps, checking your typing carefully, until the variable appears after rebooting.
Important: If you normally use the equals sign in command-line switches (as in /NT=4), you must use a hyphen instead (as in /NT-4) when specifying switches with the SET WP= command. The SET command will fail if it has any equals sign other than the one immediately after SET WP= (as shown here).
This information has been moved to a separate Desktop Shortcut page.
This information has been moved to this site's separate Windows Me page.
WordPerfect for DOS needs all the memory it can get. To increase available memory in WPDOS, you can make any or all of the following modifications to the desktop shortcut that you use to launch WordPerfect. (Help! What's a shortcut?)
Under Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7, see also the instructions on a separate page for maximizing DOS memory!
If you are using WPDOS 5.1+ or 6.x, before and after making each change, run WP, use Alt-Equals, Help/WP Info to see the amount of available memory; if the change reduces available memory, undo it and try another option. If you are using the original WPDOS 5.1, run WP, use Ctrl-F1, Go to DOS, navigate to your WP directory and run WPINFO.EXE to see how much memory is available; then enter Exit to return to WP. (The WPINFO program is installed with the utility files when you install WP, and if you do not have it on your disk, run the WP installation program, and install the utility programs when prompted. When starting the program, if you see "Not ready reading drive X" messages, simply press F each time the message appears.
To maximize memory in WP, right-click your WPDOS shortcut and choose Properties.
On the Program tab of the Properties sheet, go the Cmd line (or similar field) where you should see a path and filename that looks something like C:\WP51\WP.EXE. Insert a space after WP.EXE, and, for WPDOS 5.1+ and 6.x, add the /dl switch (disables interaction with the WP Shell, which you probably aren't using anyway). For any version of WPDOS 5.1, if you are desperately low on memory, add the /n2 switch (disables window 2 so you can only have one file open at a time).
Note: See the important notes on the /DL switch above.
(The following suggestion may or may not increase available memory in WPDOS; depending on your configuration, you may see an increase in Windows 2000 or XP, but a decrease in Windows NT. Experiment for best results!) With any WPDOS version, under Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista, or Windows 7, add command /c (the /c is essential), followed by a space, to the very start of the Cmd or Cmd line field so that the field looks something like this:
command /c c:\wp51\wp.exe /dl
Note: See the important notes on the /DL switch above.
Of course, the WP directory and program name, and any switches, should not be changed from what you already had in this field.
On the Memory tab of the Properties sheet:
Experiment with the settings for environment size, and for expanded and extended memory. Under Windows Me, with WPDOS 5.1+ and 6.x, environment size must be a number, not auto. With any Windows versions, using WPDOS 5.1 and 5.1+, you may get best results by setting EMS to the highest possible number and XMS to None. Under WPDOS 6.x, you may get best results by setting EMS to None and XMS to Auto. Experiment with different combinations.
Also, in your WordPerfect reference manual, look under Memory and read the section on Freeing Up Memory.
If WordPerfect displays an "Insufficient file handles" error message when you launch it, perform one of the following steps, depending on your Windows version:
Windows 95 or 98: Add the following line to your C:\Config.sys file (Help! How do I edit my Config.sys file?):
FilesHigh=60
If this number does not solve the problem, try 100 instead of 60.
Note: If for some reason you do not have the line DOS=UMB,HIGH in Config.sys (and you definitely should have such a line in Config.sys), use this line instead of the one indicated above: Files=60
Windows Me: From the Windows Me Start Menu, choose Run... and enter msconfig. When the System Configuration Utility opens, go to the System.ini tab. Find the folder labeled "[386Enh]" and click the plus sign to expand it. Click on the New button. In the field that opens in the program window type the following line:
PerVMFiles=225
Check your spelling. Click OK. You will be prompted to restart Windows. Click Yes.
Windows NT, 2000, or XP: Find and edit your Config.nt file. For the technically minded, this file is located in the %SystemRoot%\System32 subdirectory. For everyone else, this file is typically found in the C:\WinNT\System32 directory; or, under Windows XP, the C:\Windows\System32 directory. (Help! I can't find my Config.nt file!) Add this line at the end of the file:
Files=60
If the error message persists, try a larger number than 60 (80 should be adequate, but you may need 100).
WPDOS (unlike the later versions of Microsoft Word for DOS) has no built-in support for the Windows clipboard, but you can still import and export text between WordPerfect and Windows applications. The simplest way to do this is to install a set of macros by Robert Holmgren available elsewhere on this site, but you can also use more laborious methods as described in the following paragraphs.
To import text from the Windows clipboard, run WPDOS in a window, not full-screen. (You can toggle between full-screen and windowed modes by pressing Alt-Enter.) Either press Alt-Space or click on the icon at the upper-left corner of the WPDOS window. This will drop down the window's System menu. Choose Edit/Paste, and the text in the clipboard will be "typed" into WordPerfect.
To export text to the Windows, run WPDOS in a window. Either press Alt-Space or click on the icon at the upper-left corner of the WPDOS window. This will drop down the window's System menu. Choose Edit/Mark. Move the cursor to the upper left corner of the text you want to select. Hold down the shift key and move the cursor to the lower-right corner of the text you want to select. Press Enter. You can now paste the text into Windows applications by pressing Ctrl-V or choosing Edit/Paste from the application's menu.
Alternatively, you can copy text from WPDOS (in a window) to the Windows clipboard by dragging to select a block of text with the mouse and pressing Enter. This will work only if, in the Properties of your WPDOS shortcut (right-click on the shortcut, and choose Properties), on the Misc tab, there is a checkmark next to Quick Edit and no checkmark next to Exclusive Mode. (Exclusive Mode means that the physical mouse will move the WordPerfect mouse pointer, not the Windows mouse pointer, when WordPerfect is the active window.) (Help! What's a shortcut?)
During the initial installation process, if WPDOS displays an error message when you try to install a printer, don't panic. Launch WP after the installation finishes, and select a printer by choosing (in WPDOS 5.1) Shift-F7/Select Printer or (in WPDOS 6.x) Shift-F7/Select.
If you cannot install or run WPDOS in Windows 95 or 98, especially if you see an error message indicating "Insufficient file handles", add the following line to your C:\Config.sys file (Help! How do I edit my Config.sys file?):
FilesHigh=60
If this number does not solve the problem, try 100 instead of 60.
Note: If for some reason you do not have the line DOS=UMB,HIGH in Config.sys (and you definitely should have such a line in Config.sys), use this line instead of the one indicated above: Files=60
To run WPDOS in Windows Me, see the separate section on Windows Me compatibility elsewhere on this page.
For Windows NT, 2000, or XP, see the notes on Windows NT, 2000, and XP installation problems on a separate page.
If WPDOS still does not run, or if it runs extremely slowly, see the section on sound card conflicts elsewhere on this page.
If your computer comes with Windows 95 or 98, but you prefer to boot to a DOS prompt instead of to the Windows interface, you need to make only a slight change to one of your files. A similar change can be made to Windows Me, but only if you change other files as described on a third-party page mentioned below.
To make Windows 95 and 98 boot to the DOS prompt instead of to the Windows interface, change one line in the MSDOS.SYS file in the root directory. Use the DOS command attrib -h -s -r c:\msdos.sys to make the file editable; then open it in a text editor. Under the [options] heading, find the line that reads BootGUI=1 and change it to read BootGUI=0 (the final character is a zero). If no such line exists, create it. Save the file, and reboot. To start Windows, type win at the DOS prompt. The DOS that you access by this method is a true DOS, not an emulated DOS as in Windows NT, 2000, and XP; and this DOS (except in the first version of Windows 95) fully supports FAT32 drives.
Windows Me, as shipped, does not support the option to boot to DOS. A modification to Windows Me that restores this option may be found at one user's Windows Millennium Real-Mode DOS Patch page. This method modifies your Windows files, and should be used with extreme caution.
WPDOS 5.1 and later can use expanded memory (EMS) to increase its workspace. WPDOS 6.x can also use extended memory (XMS) for the same purpose, but, on slower systems, WPDOS 6.x seems to run faster with EMS. (If you have a fast system and use large files, however, you may get the fastest possible performance by using XMS without EMS, as described elsewhere on this page.) Most Windows 95 and 98 installations automatically provide EMS memory; in others, you must take some steps in order to provide expanded memory to DOS applications.
Note: Expanded memory is supplied in some but not all Windows Me systems; see the advice on enabling EMS for Windows Me elsewhere on this page. Expanded memory is automatically supplied in Windows NT, 2000, and XP, but, but for best results, should be fully enabled according to the instructions provided on another page.
To test whether EMS memory is available in your Windows 95 or 98 system, right-click on your WPDOS shortcut (Help! What's a shortcut?), choose Properties, and go to the Memory tab; if you do not see the option to specify the amount of EMS memory, and EMS memory is therefore unavailable, perform one of the following steps:
Either: (a) If you already have a C:\Config.sys file on your system:
Open your existing Config.sys file for editing (Help! How do I edit my Config.sys file?), look for any lines that begin dos= or device=c:\windows\himem.sys or device=c:\windows\emm386.exe, and insert the word REM (followed by a space) at the very start of each of those already present lines. Do not change any other lines that you may find in the file. Then, add the following lines to the very top the file, save the file, and reboot.
dos=umb,high
device=c:\windows\himem.sys /testmem:off
device=c:\windows\emm386.exe ram
(If Windows is not installed in c:\windows use the folder in which it is found on your system.)
Note: If your system locks up when you try to restart Windows, press F8 as the computer reboots, and choose the option Safe Mode Command Prompt only; then use Edit.exe to edit the Config.sys file; try the following steps in order until it boots again: first, remove the first line; next, in the third line, add this at the end (after a space): frame=none ; this should be sufficient.
... or: (b) If you do not have a C:\Config.sys file on your system:
Create a C:\Config.sys file that contains these lines; it is an ordinary text file, not a WP document:
dos=umb,high
device=c:\windows\himem.sys /testmem:off
device=c:\windows\emm386.exe ram
(If Windows is not installed in c:\windows use the folder in which it is found on your system.) Save the file and reboot.
Note: If your system locks up when you try to restart Windows, press F8 as the computer reboots, and choose the option Safe Mode Command Prompt only; then use Edit.exe to edit the Config.sys file; try the following steps in order until it boots again: first, remove the first line; next, in the third line, add this at the end (after a space): frame=none ; this should be sufficient.
Then, after you have modified or created C:\Config.sys:
Check the properties sheet of your WPDOS shortcut to see whether EMS is now available on the Memory tab. If EMS is still not listed as available, make certain that you have followed the instructions exactly. If you are absolutely certain that you have followed the instructions exactly, and EMS is still not available, either (a) use this site's methods of enabling expanded memory under Windows Me, which also work under Windows 98 but are normally not needed, or (b) modify the line in your C:\Config.sys file that reads:
device=c:\windows\emm386.exe ram
so that it reads like this:
device=c:\windows\emm386.exe ram m6
In other words, add the characters m6 at the end of the file; reboot your computer; if this does not work, change m6 to m1, m2, etc., through m9, until you find one that works.
If EMS is listed as available, select either Auto or the maximum amount from the drop-down menu. Run WP with the /? switch on the command line to see a list of options that you can add to your WPDOS shortcut in order to use expanded or (with WPDOS 6.x) extended memory. You may be able to solve WPDOS printing problems by adding the /R switch to the WP command line in the Program tab of your WPDOS shortcut and by assigning as much EMS memory as possible in the Memory tab. (To do this, right-click on the shortcut, choose Properties, and then go to the Program and Memory tabs.) If you run WP from a batch file, add the /R switch to the line in the batch file that runs WP, so that the line reads something like c:\wp61\wp /R instead of simply c:\wp61\wp. (Other printing problems may be solved with the solutions on this site's Windows printing page.)
Note: If you have 2 MB or less of extended or expanded memory, you may want to experiment with the /R switch before using it permanently. The extended or expanded memory used by the /R switch is not available for storing large documents in RAM, printing graphics, previewing, spell-checking, hyphenation or for the Generate command. Large-scale merging reportedly is not speeded by use of the /R switch. (This note is adapted from material found elsewhere on the Internet; I have not tested these statements myself.)
Read this important note: If you run WPDOS from a batch file or DOS prompt, it is not enough to enable expanded memory only in your shortcut for WPDOS itself. You must also create a desktop shortcut for the DOS prompt or for your batch file, and enable expanded memory in each shortcut that you create. If you need help, read this site's instructions for creating and modifying a DOS prompt and for creating and modifying desktop shortcuts.
This information has been moved to this site's separate Windows Me page.
The procedure for fully enabling expanded (EMS) memory under Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP is described on a separate page.
If you work with large files, and have a fast computer, you can dramatically increase the speed of WPDOS 6.x by allowing the program to use up to 64 MB of extended memory (XMS) instead of its built-in limit of 16 MB of expanded memory (EMS). This method works only with WPDOS 6.x, because WPDOS 5.1 cannot use XMS at all, and needs EMS for most operations. (Note that 64 MB of extended memory is available only under Windows 95, 98, and Me, not under Windows NT, 2000, or XP, where WPDOS is limited to 16 MB of extended memory.)
WPDOS 6.x will use up to 64 MB of XMS extended memory only if no EMS expanded memory is available. To prevent WP from seeing expanded memory, start the program with the /ne (no expanded memory) command-line switch. In Windows, modify the WordPerfect shortcut (Help! What's a shortcut?) to specify, under the Memory tab, that the amount of extended (XMS) memory be set as "Auto" instead of any of the numbers in the drop-down list. You may also specify "None" under expanded (EMS) memory.
For advanced users who want maximum DOS memory under Windows 95 and 98, I recommend that you download and study the freeware memory management utility UMBPCI (as modified by Uwe Sieber). Either add this program to your C:\Config.sys file (following the instructions in the documentation that comes with the UMBPCI archive) or use it as a replacement for the emm386.exe command. With this program installed, my WPDOS 6.2 setup, under Windows 98, has 282 KB of conventional memory and 65,535 KB of extended memory. When I restart in MS-DOS mode, WPDOS 6.2 has 309 KB of conventional memory and 65,535 KB of extended memory. Your results may be even better.
WordPerfect for DOS may not recognize your mouse when running in a Windows DOS box or full-screen DOS window. To enable the mouse in a DOS window, use the advice in the Customizing section on this page (see the paragraph about the Misc tab of the WP shortcut properties box). If WPDOS still does not recognize your mouse, open WordPerfect, use Shift-F1/Mouse, and select "Mouse driver (MOUSE.COM)".
This change may cause the mouse not to be recognized if you run WPDOS after restarting Windows in MS-DOS mode. If this occurs, use Shift-F1/Mouse and change back to your original settings. You can easily record macros that will switch mouse drivers and run different macros when starting WPDOS in Windows and in DOS mode.
Tip for experts: You can run WP from a batch file that will use a different startup macro depending on whether you are currently in Windows or DOS. The batch file can be based on this model:
IF %windir%=='' GOTO DosMode
wp /m-WinMouse
GOTO End
:DosMode
wp /m-DosMouse
:End
WPDOS works well in a DOS window, but, for some purposes, you may want it to start in full-screen mode. Custom WPDOS text fonts, including the euro-enabled text font available from this site, will not be visible if the program is first launched in a DOS window and then switched to full-screen mode. To force WPDOS to start in full-screen mode, use the following solutions:
(1) Modify the properties sheet of the WPDOS shortcut on your desktop and the shortcut in your WP directory. (Help! What's a shortcut?) To modify each shortcut, right-click on it, choose Properties, go to the Screen tab, and select Full-screen. If you only launch WPDOS from the Windows desktop, you need only modify the desktop icon, and you need not take any further steps.
(2) Use this step only if you sometimes (or always) start WPDOS by typing "wp" at a Windows DOS prompt. After completing step (1), create a WP.BAT batch file that launches WP and uses the properties of the shortcut (instead of running the program directly). The contents of the WP.BAT batch file will look like this one line:
start C:\WP61\WP.PIF
(Replace C:\WP61 with the path of your WP directory.) Use lines above and below this one line for any other commands that you want to run before or after running WP.
To determine where to store this batch file, open a DOS window and enter the command path. Place the batch file in the first directory on the list, or in any directory that precedes your WP directory in the path. When you launch WP from any directory other than the WP directory itself, WP will launch using the properties of its shortcut. If you are in the WP directory when you launch WP, use the command start wp.pif when launching WP. You may also want to create another batch file (perhaps called STARTWP.BAT) in the WP directory, with the same contents as the WP.BAT above, and use it when launching WP.
(3) If you want to switch to full-screen mode in any other batch file, you may use the start command as described in step (2) or, for even more reliable results, use the FStoggle.exe program, by Vincent Fatica, which is contained in this FStoggle.zip archive. Download the archive file, run it in any temporary directory, and copy FStoggle.exe and FStoggle.txt to any convenient directory. Use the program this way: if you simply run the command fstoggle the program will toggle your DOS session between full-screen and windowed mode, but if you run fstoggle f (or fstoggle full or fstoggle 1), the session will switch to full-screen if it is not already full-screen; similarly if you run fstoggle w (or fstoggle window or fstoggle 0) the session will switch to windowed mode if it is not already in windowed mode.
Note: If you use Windows 95, 98, or Me, you can also use this FULLSCRN.EXE utility, generously provided by Haye van den Oever. (The program will have no effect if DOS is already in full-screen mode.) This utility works only in Windows 95, 98, and Me, not in Windows NT, 2000, or XP.
If you have tried all the solutions on this page, and WPDOS 6.x still crashes under Windows Me, you may have a conflict with your sound card (especially a SoundBlaster Live). This problem can be solved by adding the /NS (no sound) switch to the command line that starts WordPerfect; add the switch to the command line in your WPDOS shortcut (Help! What's a shortcut?) or, if you launch WordPerfect from a batch file, add the switch to the line in the batch file that runs WP. You will not lose anything by using this switch, because WPDOS 6.x has never been able to use its sound features under Windows. (This solution was provided by John Garziglia, who discovered the incompatibility on a system that had been upgraded to Windows Me.) The same solution may also improve WPDOS's performance under Windows NT, 2000, and XP.
Note: If you do not use DOS games, and if you do not need sound in Windows DOS boxes for any other reason, you may be able to avoid many obscure Windows problems by disabling your sound card's "legacy" or "Creative SB16 Emulation" support. This can usually be done through Control Panel/System/Device Manager/Sound, video, and game controllers. First select the device that represents your sound card, and select Properties; if you find a Settings tab, look for a check box that lets you disable "legacy" or "DOS box" support. If no such tab or check box is present, return to the list of devices, look for one with "legacy" or "SB16" in its name, click Properties, and disable the device. (Do not remove the device, because it will be restored automatically when Windows restarts.)
WordPerfect for DOS 6.0 shipped with a file containing icons that can be used to represent WPDOS in Windows shortcuts. (Help! What's a shortcut?) This file was not distributed with later versions, but may be downloaded from this site. The icons are probably under Corel's copyright, but I hope there will no objection if they are made available in this way to Corel's customers. You may also use the icons in the MORICONS.DLL file typically found in your C:\Windows directory; scroll to the right edge of the sheet of icons displayed in the "Change icon" window of your shortcut to find various WP icons.
With drives larger than 2 GB in size, the List Files screen in WPDOS displays an erroneous number for the amount of free space on this drive. This error has no serious practical effect with large modern drives, and can safely be ignored. If you need to know the real amount of free space on your disk, go to the WP editing screen, use Ctrl-F1, Go to DOS, and enter the command dir c: (replace c: with another drive letter if necessary); the true amount of free space will be displayed on the last line of the output. Enter the DOS command exit to return to WP.
With drives larger than 2 GB in size, under Windows 2000 and XP only, and with WPDOS 5.1 and 5.1+ only, you cannot use the WP feature that normally lets you press F5-F5 to display the List Files screen in the same state it was when you last exited that screen. A macro that partly solves this problem may be found elsewhere on this site.
Note: Some but not all systems that use Windows XP Service Pack 2 do not exhibit the following problem. I do not know why Service Pack 2 solves the problem in some cases (such as my own Windows XP system) but not in others.
WPDOS 6.x includes a "Directory Tree" feature that displays a tree-structured diagram of the directories on any disk. This feature is accessed by pressing F5, then F8 (or choosing File Manager from the File menu, then Directory Tree). When this feature is used under Windows, and is used with the hard disk letter that contains Windows itself (typically drive C:), WPDOS freezes, and any changes that you made since the last save in any open document are lost. The lockup sometimes occurs the first time you try to access the directory tree on the drive, sometimes the second time you access the tree.
This problem seems to occur because the DOS used in Windows 95 and later versions allows for a deeper directory structure (more levels of subdirectories) than earlier DOS versions, and WPDOS gets confused by a directory structure that it never expected to find. There is no workaround, and the only solution seems to be this:
Use a disk partitioning program (for example, Acronis Disk Director Suite or Partition Magic) to divide your disk into more than one drive letter (C: and D:) and move all your WordPerfect documents to directories on your new drive letter D:. In WPDOS, use Shift-F1/Location of Files/Documents to set the WPDOS default directory to one of the directories on your new drive letter D:. You will need to remember not to use the Directory Tree feature on Drive C: or on any other drive that has an especially deep directory structure that may have been created by one of your applications.
Advice on using WPDOS on Windows networks may be found on this site's networking page.